How often do people intend to engage in interpersonal emotion regulation in day-to-day life? Existing literature has focused primarily on asking about the strategies people use to regulate, which means researchers have little understanding of how often people actually aim to engage in regulation to begin with. To answer this foundational question, we conducted two studies using daily diary (N = 171) and experience sampling methods (N = 239). We explored how often people use others to regulate their own emotions, and how often they regulate others’ emotions. Almost everyone engaged in interpersonal emotion regulation at least once over the course of a week, primarily with the goal to help themselves or others feel better, rather than worse. In fact, people regulated others’ emotions nearly twice as often as they turned to others to regulate their own emotions, and put more conscious effort into regulating others’ emotions compared to their own. Trait perceived efficacy of engaging in interpersonal emotion regulation was the most consistent predictor of momentary regulation intentions. The medium of the interaction—in person or digital—did not consistently predict momentary intentions or effort. Together, these findings provide a foundational picture of the interpersonal emotion regulation landscape, and lay the groundwork for future exploration into this emerging subfield of affective science.