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⏯️Play Or Pause Button Emoji

Unicode added ⏯️ play or pause button in Emoji 1.0 (2015), filed under Symbols → Audio & Video Symbols. Its codepoint is U+23EF U+FE0F, and it is tagged arrow, button and pause.

What ⏯️ play or pause 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 pause and files it under Symbols → Audio & Video Symbols.

Copy variants

play or pause 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+23EFplay or pause button
·U+FE0FVariation selector (emoji style)

Codes & technical data

Unicode	`U+23EF U+FE0F`
HTML hex	`⏯️`
HTML decimal	`⏯️`
CSS	`\23EF\FE0F`
JavaScript	`\u{23EF}\u{FE0F}`
Python	`\U000023EF\U0000FE0F`
Java / C#	`\u23EF\uFE0F`
Rust	`\u{23ef}\u{fe0f}`
Swift	`\u{23EF}\u{FE0F}`
PHP	`\u{23EF}\u{FE0F}`
URL encoded	`%E2%8F%AF%EF%B8%8F`
UTF-8 bytes	`E2 8F AF EF B8 8F`
UTF-16 bytes	`23EF FE0F`
Base64	`4o+v77iP`
Decimal	`9199 65039`
Introduced	Emoji 1.0 (2015)

Keywords

arrow
button
pause
play
right
triangle

Appears in these collections

How to type ⏯️

Windows — press Win + . and search “play or pause button”.
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 23ef 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 ⏯️ play or pause button emoji mean?+

⏯️ is the play or pause button emoji, tagged arrow, button and pause. 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 or pause button is U+23EF U+FE0F. In HTML that is ⏯️, in CSS \23EF\FE0F, and in JavaScript \u{23EF}\u{FE0F}. The full table above lists every escape format.

When was the ⏯️ emoji added?+

play or pause button got its emoji presentation in Emoji 1.0 (2015). 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 Emoji 1.0 (2015)

Other emojis that shipped in the same Unicode release as ⏯️ play or pause button.