diff --git a/apps/meteor/app/theme/client/imports/components/emoji.css b/apps/meteor/app/theme/client/imports/components/emoji.css
index 1210cfba02c9b..534b89d667d84 100644
--- a/apps/meteor/app/theme/client/imports/components/emoji.css
+++ b/apps/meteor/app/theme/client/imports/components/emoji.css
@@ -30,5 +30,11 @@
 	/* emojis on messages */
 	&__emoji {
 		font-family: 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Noto Color Emoji', 'Twemoji Mozilla', 'Android Emoji', sans-serif;
+
+		/* fuselage's fixed-size inline-block box (meant for image-based custom emojis) is too small for native glyphs on fonts with wider metrics (e.g. Linux), so they overflow the box and crowd the surrounding text; :not(--custom) outranks its specificity to override reliably */
+		&:not(&--custom) {
+			width: auto;
+			margin: .15em .05em;
+		}
 	}
 }