diff --git a/src/autocomplete/EmojiProvider.tsx b/src/autocomplete/EmojiProvider.tsx
index be6b590248..27e24af205 100644
--- a/src/autocomplete/EmojiProvider.tsx
+++ b/src/autocomplete/EmojiProvider.tsx
@@ -27,36 +27,22 @@ import _uniq from 'lodash/uniq';
 import _sortBy from 'lodash/sortBy';
 import SettingsStore from "../settings/SettingsStore";
 import { shortcodeToUnicode } from '../HtmlUtils';
+import { EMOJI, IEmoji } from '../emoji';
 
 import EMOTICON_REGEX from 'emojibase-regex/emoticon';
-import * as EMOJIBASE from 'emojibase-data/en/compact.json';
 
 const LIMIT = 20;
 
 // Match for ascii-style ";-)" emoticons or ":wink:" shortcodes provided by emojibase
 const EMOJI_REGEX = new RegExp('(' + EMOTICON_REGEX.source + '|:[+-\\w]*:?)$', 'g');
 
-interface IEmoji {
-    annotation: string;
-    group: number;
-    hexcode: string;
-    order: number;
-    shortcodes: string[];
-    tags: string[];
-    unicode: string;
-    emoticon: string;
-}
-
 interface IEmojiShort {
     emoji: IEmoji;
     shortname: string;
     _orderBy: number;
 }
 
-// XXX: it's very unclear why we bother with this generated emojidata file.
-// all it means is that we end up bloating the bundle with precomputed stuff
-// which would be trivial to calculate and cache on demand.
-const EMOJI_SHORTNAMES: IEmojiShort[] = (EMOJIBASE as IEmoji[]).sort((a, b) => {
+const EMOJI_SHORTNAMES: IEmojiShort[] = EMOJI.sort((a, b) => {
     if (a.group === b.group) {
         return a.order - b.order;
     }
diff --git a/src/emoji.js b/src/emoji.ts
similarity index 79%
rename from src/emoji.js
rename to src/emoji.ts
index 20b05531ca..c0a755145a 100644
--- a/src/emoji.js
+++ b/src/emoji.ts
@@ -14,12 +14,28 @@ See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 limitations under the License.
 */
 
+// @ts-ignore - import * as EMOJIBASE actually breaks this
 import EMOJIBASE from 'emojibase-data/en/compact.json';
 
+export interface IEmoji {
+    annotation: string;
+    group: number;
+    hexcode: string;
+    order: number;
+    shortcodes: string[];
+    tags: string[];
+    unicode: string;
+    emoticon?: string;
+}
+
+interface IEmojiWithFilterString extends IEmoji {
+    filterString?: string;
+}
+
 // The unicode is stored without the variant selector
-const UNICODE_TO_EMOJI = new Map(); // not exported as gets for it are handled by getEmojiFromUnicode
-export const EMOTICON_TO_EMOJI = new Map();
-export const SHORTCODE_TO_EMOJI = new Map();
+const UNICODE_TO_EMOJI = new Map<string, IEmojiWithFilterString>(); // not exported as gets for it are handled by getEmojiFromUnicode
+export const EMOTICON_TO_EMOJI = new Map<string, IEmojiWithFilterString>();
+export const SHORTCODE_TO_EMOJI = new Map<string, IEmojiWithFilterString>();
 
 export const getEmojiFromUnicode = unicode => UNICODE_TO_EMOJI.get(stripVariation(unicode));
 
@@ -48,7 +64,7 @@ export const DATA_BY_CATEGORY = {
 };
 
 // Store various mappings from unicode/emoticon/shortcode to the Emoji objects
-EMOJIBASE.forEach(emoji => {
+EMOJIBASE.forEach((emoji: IEmojiWithFilterString) => {
     const categoryId = EMOJIBASE_GROUP_ID_TO_CATEGORY[emoji.group];
     if (DATA_BY_CATEGORY.hasOwnProperty(categoryId)) {
         DATA_BY_CATEGORY[categoryId].push(emoji);
@@ -89,3 +105,5 @@ EMOJIBASE.forEach(emoji => {
 function stripVariation(str) {
     return str.replace(/[\uFE00-\uFE0F]$/, "");
 }
+
+export const EMOJI: IEmoji[] = EMOJIBASE;