Prevent Samsung's stock Messaging app from converting textual emoticon to emoji I'm using Samsung Galaxy S8+ on Android 7.0 Nougat. When I send a classic emoticon in the text on the stock Messaging app, like one of these:

:-)
;-)
:-P


they will be displayed as an Android head, similar to one of these:



A couple of questions about this:


Is this just something that happens locally on my phone, or is the recipient seeing the same thing?
How do I disable the function in my default SMS app?


I personally find it a bit annoying that the conversion only appears after the message is sent. So, I have no way of knowing that my textual emoticons are going to be supplanted during composition.

Please note: I'm not interested in using a third-party (non-Google/Samsung) SMS app, and I don't want to root my phone.
Open the message app, then back out of any open text message until you get to the message history list. Open the menu from the top-left icon, scroll down and select "Settings." There should be an option titled "Enable Smart Emojis." Turn that off and hopefully this fixes your problem.