The Emotion Wheel (also known as a feelings wheel, emotions wheel or wheel of emotions) is a free interactive tool that helps you name and understand your emotions. Begin with six core emotions — love, joy, surprise, sadness, anger and fear — then explore the feelings wheel outward to find the precise word for how you feel. Ideal for adults, therapy, journaling and helping children build their emotional vocabulary. Works offline and installs as an app.
A simple way to put your finger on exactly what you feel.
An emotion wheel (or feelings wheel) starts at the centre with a big, broad feeling, then lets you spin outward to a more precise word. Six core emotions sit in the middle — love, joy, surprise, sadness, anger and fear — and every outer word is a shade of one of them.
Psychologists call this skill emotional granularity — being able to tell your feelings apart. Naming a feeling precisely (not just “bad”, but “disappointed” or “lonely”) actually quiets the brain’s alarm system and makes the emotion easier to handle. Those six core emotions are recognised across nearly every culture, which is why they sit at the heart of the wheel.
Let them spin the wheel for fun first, then ask “where are you right now?” Switch on Simplify for gentler, plainer words. Keep it playful and remember there are no wrong answers — naming feelings together grows their vocabulary and helps them feel understood.
This interactive wheel is inspired by existing feelings-wheel models and widely recognised research into basic emotions. It is provided free of charge as a non-commercial resource. Learn about emotion models.
This app collects no data at all — no analytics, no tracking, no cookies, no accounts, nothing leaves your device. Everything runs client-side and works fully offline. Read the full privacy policy.
Designed & built by stirtingale.com
Add the Emotion Wheel to your device — it opens full-screen and works completely offline.
Your feelings are yours. We don't collect a thing.
This app collects no personal data whatsoever. There are no analytics, no cookies, no tracking pixels, no fingerprinting, no server logs of your usage, and no third-party scripts.
There is no sign-up, no login, and no cloud storage. Nothing you do in the app is recorded or transmitted anywhere. Every interaction happens entirely on your device.
The app is a Progressive Web App (PWA) that caches itself for offline use via a service worker. The only network requests are to load the app files the first time and check for updates. No data is ever sent back.
There are no advertisements and no monetisation of user behaviour. The app is free and will remain free.
Choose a model to explore, or learn about the research behind them.
The models here are inspired by the principles of each approach, not exact reproductions. They aim to capture the core ideas — the emotions, structure and relationships — in an interactive format. Layouts and wording may differ from the originals. This is a free, non-commercial resource for exploring emotions.
Junto-style Wheel — a three-ring concentric wheel inspired by the popular "feelings wheel" format widely shared in therapy, education and self-help. Six core emotions sit at the centre — fear, anger, sadness, surprise, joy and love — with increasingly specific secondary and tertiary feelings radiating outward. The Junto-style model emphasises emotional granularity: moving from a broad feeling to a precise word that captures exactly what you're experiencing.
Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions (1980) — eight primary emotions in opposing pairs, with intensity varying from centre to edge and combined "dyad" emotions between petals. Learn more · Original diagram.
Ekman's Atlas of Emotions (1972 / 2016) — five universal emotions (anger, fear, disgust, sadness, enjoyment) each containing states of varying intensity. Created with the Dalai Lama. Note: the Atlas is not a wheel — it is an interactive map of emotional states. Our wheel format is inspired by Ekman's pairings and intensity structure. Atlas of Emotions · Interactive atlas.
Geneva Emotion Wheel (Scherer, 2005) — twenty emotions arranged on valence and arousal axes, each with five intensity levels. Learn more · Original diagram.