Rails 4, MySQL, and Emoji (Mysql2::Error: Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x8C\x9D')
Step 1 Change encoding from utf8 to utf8mb4 class ConvertTableToUtf8mb4 < ActiveRecord::Migration def change # For the table that will store unicode execute: execute "ALTER TABLE `table_name` CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_bin" # For each column with unicode content execute: execute "ALTER TABLE `table_name` CHANGE column_name VARCHAR(226) CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_bin" end end Step 2 Change database.yml according to the changes made. development: adapter: mysql2 database: database_name username: username password: password encoding: utf8mb4 collation: utf8mb4_unicode_ci