Remove Emoji Support in WordPress 4.2+

Did anyone actually ask around before making this “feature” mandatory? Let’s get rid of this…

Option 1

Install Ryan Hellyer’s “Disable Emojis” plugin.

Option 2

Custom code. Place following into functions.php

<?php
//* Do NOT include the opening php tag shown above. Copy the code shown below into functions.php

/**
 * Remove emoji support.
 */
function grd_remove_emoji() {
	remove_action( 'wp_head', 'print_emoji_detection_script', 7 );
	remove_action( 'admin_print_scripts', 'print_emoji_detection_script' );
	remove_action( 'admin_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' );
	remove_action( 'wp_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' );
	remove_filter( 'the_content_feed', 'wp_staticize_emoji' );
	remove_filter( 'comment_text_rss', 'wp_staticize_emoji' );
	remove_filter( 'wp_mail', 'wp_staticize_emoji_for_email' );

	// Remove from TinyMCE
	add_filter( 'tiny_mce_plugins', 'grd_remove_tinymce_emoji' );
}
add_action( 'init', 'grd_remove_emoji' );

/**
 * Filter out the tinymce emoji plugin.
 */
function grd_remove_tinymce_emoji( $plugins ) {

	if ( ! is_array( $plugins ) ) {
		return array();
	}

	return array_diff( $plugins, array( 'wpemoji' ) );
}