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⬅️Left Arrow Emoji

Unicode added ⬅️ left arrow in Unicode 6.0 (2010), filed under Symbols → Arrows. Its codepoint is U+2B05 U+FE0F, and it is tagged arrow, cardinal and direction.

What ⬅️ left arrow means

Pointing at things: replies, links, swipe prompts and thread continuations. ⬆️ and ⬇️ direct attention to the post above or below, 🔄 signals a refresh or a repost, and ↩️ marks a reply. Five of them carry English words baked into the glyph, 🔙, 🔚, 🔛, 🔜 and 🔝, inherited from Japanese carrier emoji sets, which is why they look nothing like the rest.

Unicode tags this one arrow, cardinal and direction and files it under Symbols → Arrows.

Copy variants

left arrow carries a variation selector (U+FE0F) that forces colour rendering. Drop it and the same character renders as monochrome text.

Shortcodes

Type these instead of pasting — most chat apps expand them as you type.

How ⬅️ is built

This emoji is more than one codepoint. Each part below is a character in its own right.

⬅U+2B05left arrow
·U+FE0FVariation selector (emoji style)

Codes & technical data

Unicode	`U+2B05 U+FE0F`
HTML hex	`⬅️`
HTML decimal	`⬅️`
CSS	`\2B05\FE0F`
JavaScript	`\u{2B05}\u{FE0F}`
Python	`\U00002B05\U0000FE0F`
Java / C#	`\u2B05\uFE0F`
Rust	`\u{2b05}\u{fe0f}`
Swift	`\u{2B05}\u{FE0F}`
PHP	`\u{2B05}\u{FE0F}`
URL encoded	`%E2%AC%85%EF%B8%8F`
UTF-8 bytes	`E2 AC 85 EF B8 8F`
UTF-16 bytes	`2B05 FE0F`
Base64	`4qyF77iP`
Decimal	`11013 65039`
Introduced	Unicode 6.0 (2010)

Keywords

arrow
cardinal
direction
left
west

Appears in these collections

How to type ⬅️

Windows — press Win + . and search “left arrow”.
macOS — press Ctrl + Cmd + Space to open the character viewer.
iOS & Android — switch to the emoji keyboard and type “arrow”.
Linux — press Ctrl + Shift + U, then type 2b05 and Enter.
HTML — paste ⬅️.

How ⬅️ renders

The same character drawn with whichever emoji fonts your device has installed. Apple, Google and Microsoft each draw it differently, so what you see below depends on what you are reading this on.

⬅️Apple
⬅️Segoe
⬅️Noto
⬅️System

Frequently asked questions

What does the ⬅️ left arrow emoji mean?+

⬅️ is the left arrow emoji, tagged arrow, cardinal and direction. Pointing at things: replies, links, swipe prompts and thread continuations. ⬆️ and ⬇️ direct attention to the post above or below, 🔄 signals a refresh or a repost, and ↩️ marks a reply. Five of them carry English words baked into the glyph, 🔙, 🔚, 🔛, 🔜 and 🔝, inherited from Japanese carrier emoji sets, which is why they look nothing like the rest.

What is the Unicode code for ⬅️?+

left arrow is U+2B05 U+FE0F. In HTML that is ⬅️, in CSS \2B05\FE0F, and in JavaScript \u{2B05}\u{FE0F}. The full table above lists every escape format.

When was the ⬅️ emoji added?+

left arrow got its emoji presentation in Unicode 6.0 (2010). Platforms that shipped before that release may draw it in plain text, or not at all — that is why the same character can look different on an old phone.

Added in Unicode 6.0 (2010)

Other emojis that shipped in the same Unicode release as ⬅️ left arrow.