How to Download and Customize Microsoft’s Open-Source Emoji

Don’t we all love emoji? They have become the perfect visual language to express joy and sadness, joy and pain, like and dislike, suggestions and opinions, and more.

An emoji lover like you will be thrilled to know that Microsoft has made its 3D emoji library open source for developers, creators and everyone. Yes, you can now download and customize these Fluent Emojis to spice up your work, play and conversations. Let’s explore how.

Microsoft’s Fluent Emoji is now free to edit and use

On August 10, 2022, Microsoft announced that it was making over 1,500 emojis in its library open source for developers and creators.

These Fluent Design emojis have been made available on GitHub for you to download and tweak to create your versions. They are also available on Figma, a collaborative interface design web application acquired by Adobe.

But if you’re a fan of the Clippy paperclip mascot, you’ll be disappointed that Clippy isn’t part of the open-source emoji set. Some other emojis, including those with the Windows and Microsoft logos, are also unavailable. As Jon Friedman, Microsoft CVP, Design & Research puts it:

Clippy is not included in the open source emoji set. I know, and personally I’d love to, but for (legal reasons, legal terms, legal terms) we can’t use open source trademarks. Our country flags, video games, and technician emojis are also unavailable for the same reason.

According to Microsoft, emoji must be in SVG, PNG, and JPG format for true versatility. And each of the open-source Fluent emojis comes with the full 3D version, complete with texture and gradients, a flat color version, and a high-contrast monochromatic file.

Microsoft hopes the creator community will take these emojis and remixes and adapt them to create never-before-seen designs.

However, you don’t have to be a developer or creator to customize and use Fluent Emoji. Let’s explore how to download and edit Microsoft emojis to use in work meetings or social chats.

How to download Microsoft Fluent Emoji from GitHub

How to download the emojis:

1. Visit the Microsoft Fluent Emoji page on GitHub.

2. Click on that down arrow on the green code button to open the menu
3. Then click Download ZIP and the Fluent Emoji ZIP file containing all the emojis will be downloaded to your computer.

4. Now extract the files from the fluentui-emoji-main Folder with an archive extraction tool like WinRAR.
5. Open the extracted folder and then the financial assets folder in it. You can find all Fluent emojis in separate folders. Each emoji folder contains a PNG file of the 3D emoji, along with SVG files for the emoji’s color, flat, and high contrast. Plus the people emoji feature files in different skin tones.

If you’re a developer or designer, you might find it handy to download Figma’s Fluent emoji – the GitHub repository link is there too.

How to customize the flowing emoji and create your own designs

You can use many good design apps like Canva and emoji editors to customize Microsoft’s open source emoji. Professional designers would prefer Figma as the Fluent Emoji set is available there for them to optimize on Figma.

Both Canva and Figma are popular with designers, but for this tutorial we used the Canva online graphic design tool because amateur designers or even design newbies can easily use it. Let’s see how.

1. Download the Canva app from the Microsoft Store and install it on your desktop.
2. Then sign up with Google, Facebook, or your email address and you’re ready to start using Canva.
3. Click on that violet Create a theme Button on the Canva homepage. Choose what you want to create from the drop-down menu. We’re going to create a social media sticker using one of the Fluent emojis, so that’s what I chose logo 500x500px size option that would be suitable. Custom sizes can be created if you upgrade to the Canva Pro version.

4. The new design page with the selected size opens. First upload the emoji you want to use. To do this, click on uploading in the menu on the left. Now click on the Upload purple files Button.

5. Once the File Explorer window opens, navigate to the financial assets folder in fluent-emoji-main Folder on your PC to select an emoji. That Cowboy Hat Face 3D Emoji is selected here. With this we will create a fun Halloween sticker.

6. Once the emoji is uploaded, you can simply drag and drop it onto the blank design canvas – as you can see in the screenshot below.

Now that we’ve got the emoji ready, it’s time to add some personal flair to it:

1. You can search in the left menu to add templates, elementsand text. Besides the More button gives you access to photos, styles, backgrounds, and other cool stuff. You can also subscribe to the Canva Pro version for more items.
2. Or you can search for what you want like Halloween graphics, backgrounds, bats, cats, ghosts and more. So I chose a first pumpkin face and drag and drop onto the Cowboy Hat Face Emoji’s hat. Then added two Circle Graphics that can be wrapped around the emoji.

3. Then various items like that Happy Halloween Text, bats and a Spirit, and a nice colored background have been added. Each of the elements can be moved and made smaller or larger depending on the design.

4. And to add to the fun, I replaced the Happy Halloween text with a cool one Happy haunting text and placed it just below the cowboy’s face. And your Halloween sticker is ready.

5. Once your design is complete, you can save it to your project folder on Canva or share its link or share your sticker on social media. To do this, click the Share button at the top right.

6. Or click Download button to save it on your PC and use it as you like. You will be suggested to download as PNG or you can choose other file options. Saving in SVG format is a feature of Canva Pro.

This way you can use any Microsoft Fluent emoji and create new emoji, stickers and new themes.

Another app you can try for editing fluent emojis is PiZap. In addition, you can also create custom emojis in Windows 10 and 11.

Customize Fluent Emoji to add a fun, personal touch

Now that you can customize Microsoft’s Fluent Emojis to your liking, why not create some signature emojis or stickers for fun or special occasions? And add a fun, personal touch to your chats, emails, and social media posts.