Disable Emojis in WordPress 4.2+ For a Faster Page Load

As of WordPress 4.2, a new feature was introduced that allows you to use the new Emojis. While on some WordPress setups are useful, in many situations, especially when you are not using WordPress as a blog, you just don’t need them and the file /wp-includes/js/wp-emoji-release.min.js is loaded along with extra inline JavaScript code.

As I want my page to load as fast as possible and have the HTML code clean when analyzing the source code (as a developer), I’d rather have all that extra code removed, especially since it loads on every page of my website. There are two ways in which you can do that, depending on your circumstances.

1) Use the code snippet below:

You can edit functions.php or have a custom plugin with snippets as the block of code is pretty small. If you are comfortable with that, here’s the code that you can use:

function gl_disable_wp_emojicons() {
    // Remove actions and filters related to Emojis
    remove_action( 'admin_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' );
    remove_action( 'wp_head', 'print_emoji_detection_script', 7 );
    remove_action( 'admin_print_scripts', 'print_emoji_detection_script' );
    remove_action( 'wp_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' );
    remove_filter( 'wp_mail', 'wp_staticize_emoji_for_email' );
    remove_filter( 'the_content_feed', 'wp_staticize_emoji' );
    remove_filter( 'comment_text_rss', 'wp_staticize_emoji' );

    // Filter to remove TinyMCE Emojis
    add_filter( 'tiny_mce_plugins', 'gl_disable_emojicons_tinymce' );
}

add_action( 'init', 'gl_disable_wp_emojicons' );

function gl_disable_emojicons_tinymce( $plugins ) {
    if ( is_array( $plugins ) ) {
        return array_diff( $plugins, array( 'wpemoji' ) );
    } else {
        return array();
    }
}

2) Using a plugin

This is the quickest way to do that and Emojis will still work in browsers which have built-in support for them. This plugin simply removes the extra code bloat used to add support for emoji in older browsers. You just need to activate the plugin, go to “Settings” -> “Site-Wide Common Unloads” -> and turn on “Disable Emojis Site-Wide?”.