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▶️Play Button Emoji
▶️ is the play button emoji, U+25B6 U+FE0F, one of 25 in the Audio & Video Symbols set. It arrived with Unicode 6.0 (2010) and is commonly used for arrow, button and play.
What ▶️ play button means
Playback controls used literally and as metaphors alike: ⏸️ for pausing a plan, ⏭️ for skipping ahead, 🔁 for something happening all over again. 📶 signals reception or, by extension, being unreachable. Several of these are text-default characters that need the variation selector U+FE0F after them to appear in colour, which is why they sometimes render as plain black outlines.
Unicode tags this one arrow, button and play and files it under Symbols → Audio & Video Symbols.
Copy variants
play button 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+25B6play button
- ·U+FE0FVariation selector (emoji style)
Codes & technical data
| Unicode | U+25B6 U+FE0F | |
|---|---|---|
| HTML hex | ▶️ | |
| HTML decimal | ▶️ | |
| CSS | \25B6\FE0F | |
| JavaScript | \u{25B6}\u{FE0F} | |
| Python | \U000025B6\U0000FE0F | |
| Java / C# | \u25B6\uFE0F | |
| Rust | \u{25b6}\u{fe0f} | |
| Swift | \u{25B6}\u{FE0F} | |
| PHP | \u{25B6}\u{FE0F} | |
| URL encoded | %E2%96%B6%EF%B8%8F | |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 96 B6 EF B8 8F | |
| UTF-16 bytes | 25B6 FE0F | |
| Base64 | 4pa277iP | |
| Decimal | 9654 65039 | |
| Introduced | Unicode 6.0 (2010) | |
Keywords
Appears in these collections
How to type ▶️
- Windows — press
Win + .and search “play button”. - macOS — press
Ctrl + Cmd + Spaceto open the character viewer. - iOS & Android — switch to the emoji keyboard and type “arrow”.
- Linux — press
Ctrl + Shift + U, then type25b6and 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 ▶️ play button emoji mean?+
▶️ is the play button emoji, tagged arrow, button and play. Playback controls used literally and as metaphors alike: ⏸️ for pausing a plan, ⏭️ for skipping ahead, 🔁 for something happening all over again. 📶 signals reception or, by extension, being unreachable. Several of these are text-default characters that need the variation selector U+FE0F after them to appear in colour, which is why they sometimes render as plain black outlines.
What is the Unicode code for ▶️?+
play button is U+25B6 U+FE0F. In HTML that is ▶️, in CSS \25B6\FE0F, and in JavaScript \u{25B6}\u{FE0F}. The full table above lists every escape format.
When was the ▶️ emoji added?+
play button 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.
Related emojis
More emojis from Audio & Video Symbols in Symbols.
Added in Unicode 6.0 (2010)
Other emojis that shipped in the same Unicode release as ▶️ play button.