diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 3491631de5..761d5ec42d 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -7,6 +7,13 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ## Unreleased
 
+**emojified commit message**
+
+![emojified-commit-message](assets/emojified-commit-message.png)
+
+## Added
+- added support for markdown emoji's in commits [[@andrewpollack](https://github.com/andrewpollack)] ([#768](https://github.com/extrawurst/gitui/issues/768))
+
 ## Fixed
 - fix commit msg being broken inside tag list ([#871](https://github.com/extrawurst/gitui/issues/871))
 
diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index cbc0fa7806..7e2e0edc3a 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -421,6 +421,16 @@ dependencies = [
  "wasi",
 ]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "gh-emoji"
+version = "1.0.6"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "d6af39cf9a679d7195b3370f5454381ba49c4791bc7ce3ae2a7bf1a2a89c7adf"
+dependencies = [
+ "phf",
+ "regex",
+]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "gimli"
 version = "0.25.0"
@@ -481,6 +491,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "dirs-next",
  "easy-cast",
  "filetreelist",
+ "gh-emoji",
  "itertools",
  "lazy_static",
  "log",
@@ -896,6 +907,24 @@ version = "2.1.0"
 source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
 checksum = "d4fd5641d01c8f18a23da7b6fe29298ff4b55afcccdf78973b24cf3175fee32e"
 
+[[package]]
+name = "phf"
+version = "0.10.0"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "b9fc3db1018c4b59d7d582a739436478b6035138b6aecbce989fc91c3e98409f"
+dependencies = [
+ "phf_shared",
+]
+
+[[package]]
+name = "phf_shared"
+version = "0.10.0"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "b6796ad771acdc0123d2a88dc428b5e38ef24456743ddb1744ed628f9815c096"
+dependencies = [
+ "siphasher",
+]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "pkg-config"
 version = "0.3.19"
@@ -1242,6 +1271,12 @@ dependencies = [
  "log",
 ]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "siphasher"
+version = "0.3.6"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "729a25c17d72b06c68cb47955d44fda88ad2d3e7d77e025663fdd69b93dd71a1"
+
 [[package]]
 name = "smallvec"
 version = "1.6.1"
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 74f269fa9a..dbba85bfa6 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -47,6 +47,7 @@ easy-cast = "0.4"
 bugreport = "0.4"
 lazy_static = "1.4"
 syntect = { version = "4.5", default-features = false, features = ["metadata", "default-fancy"]}
+gh-emoji = "1.0.6"
 
 [target.'cfg(all(target_family="unix",not(target_os="macos")))'.dependencies]
 which = "4.1"
diff --git a/assets/emojified-commit-message.png b/assets/emojified-commit-message.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5333c0f2e5
Binary files /dev/null and b/assets/emojified-commit-message.png differ
diff --git a/src/components/commitlist.rs b/src/components/commitlist.rs
index 78f227da7d..382019a73d 100644
--- a/src/components/commitlist.rs
+++ b/src/components/commitlist.rs
@@ -301,6 +301,7 @@ impl CommitList {
 			Cow::from(e.msg.as_str()),
 			theme.text(true, selected),
 		));
+
 		Spans::from(txt)
 	}
 
diff --git a/src/components/utils/logitems.rs b/src/components/utils/logitems.rs
index 7008319ac1..9f21d3261b 100644
--- a/src/components/utils/logitems.rs
+++ b/src/components/utils/logitems.rs
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@ use asyncgit::sync::{CommitId, CommitInfo};
 use chrono::{DateTime, Duration, Local, NaiveDateTime, Utc};
 use std::slice::Iter;
 
+use crate::components::utils::emojifi_string;
+
 static SLICE_OFFSET_RELOAD_THRESHOLD: usize = 100;
 
 pub struct LogEntry {
@@ -19,9 +21,15 @@ impl From<CommitInfo> for LogEntry {
 				NaiveDateTime::from_timestamp(c.time, 0),
 				Utc,
 			));
+
+		// Replace markdown emojis with Unicode equivalent
+		let author = c.author;
+		let mut msg = c.message;
+		emojifi_string(&mut msg);
+
 		Self {
-			author: c.author,
-			msg: c.message,
+			author,
+			msg,
 			time,
 			hash_short: c.id.get_short_string(),
 			id: c.id,
@@ -98,3 +106,41 @@ impl ItemBatch {
 		needs_data_bottom || needs_data_top
 	}
 }
+
+#[cfg(test)]
+mod tests {
+	use super::*;
+
+	fn test_conversion(s: &str) -> String {
+		let mut s = s.to_string();
+		emojifi_string(&mut s);
+		s
+	}
+
+	#[test]
+	fn test_emojifi_string_conversion_cases() {
+		assert_eq!(
+			&test_conversion("It's :hammer: time!"),
+			"It's 🔨 time!"
+		);
+		assert_eq!(
+			&test_conversion(":red_circle::orange_circle::yellow_circle::green_circle::large_blue_circle::purple_circle:"),
+			"🔴🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣"
+		);
+		assert_eq!(
+			&test_conversion("It's raining :cat:s and :dog:s"),
+			"It's raining 🐱s and 🐶s"
+		);
+		assert_eq!(&test_conversion(":crab: rules!"), "🦀 rules!");
+	}
+
+	#[test]
+	fn test_emojifi_string_no_conversion_cases() {
+		assert_eq!(&test_conversion("123"), "123");
+		assert_eq!(
+			&test_conversion("This :should_not_convert:"),
+			"This :should_not_convert:"
+		);
+		assert_eq!(&test_conversion(":gopher:"), ":gopher:");
+	}
+}
diff --git a/src/components/utils/mod.rs b/src/components/utils/mod.rs
index ab45bbea57..da2208ae2f 100644
--- a/src/components/utils/mod.rs
+++ b/src/components/utils/mod.rs
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
 use chrono::{DateTime, Local, NaiveDateTime, Utc};
+use lazy_static::lazy_static;
+use std::borrow::Cow;
 use unicode_width::UnicodeWidthStr;
 
 pub mod filetree;
@@ -53,6 +55,21 @@ pub fn string_width_align(s: &str, width: usize) -> String {
 	}
 }
 
+lazy_static! {
+	static ref EMOJI_REPLACER: gh_emoji::Replacer =
+		gh_emoji::Replacer::new();
+}
+
+// Replace markdown emojis with Unicode equivalent
+// :hammer: --> 🔨
+#[inline]
+pub fn emojifi_string(s: &mut String) {
+	let resulting_cow = EMOJI_REPLACER.replace_all(s);
+	if let Cow::Owned(altered_s) = resulting_cow {
+		*s = altered_s;
+	}
+}
+
 #[inline]
 fn find_truncate_point(s: &str, chars: usize) -> usize {
 	s.chars().take(chars).map(char::len_utf8).sum()