U+232B · Other symbol
Erase To The Left Symbol ⌫
⌫ is erase to the left, U+232B. Unicode also records it as “delete to the left key”. It was added in Unicode 1.1, and Unicode files it under Other symbol.
Also known as
- delete to the left key
Unicode 1.0 called this character delete to the left key. The standard renamed it later, but documents, fonts and font-editing tools from that era still use the old name.
Codes & technical data
| Unicode | U+232B | |
|---|---|---|
| HTML hex | ⌫ | |
| HTML decimal | ⌫ | |
| CSS | \232B | |
| JavaScript | \u{232B} | |
| Python | \U0000232B | |
| Java / C# | \u232B | |
| Rust | \u{232b} | |
| Swift | \u{232B} | |
| PHP | \u{232B} | |
| URL encoded | %E2%8C%AB | |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 8C AB | |
| UTF-16 bytes | 232B | |
| Base64 | 4oyr | |
| Decimal | 9003 | |
| Category | Other symbol (So) | |
| Introduced | Unicode 1.1 | |
Will ⌫ survive being pasted?
- Normalisation. Yes. ⌫ is unchanged by NFKC, so it survives normalising systems intact.
- Legacy encodings. ⌫ is Unicode-only — it has no Latin-1 equivalent, so a system stuck on an 8-bit encoding cannot represent it.
- Size. 3 bytes in UTF-8. Character-limited fields — SMS, bios, some form validators — usually count bytes, not characters.
Nearby in Miscellaneous Technical
Symbols from engineering, electronics and computing: APL operators, keyboard keys, dentistry and cartography marks. The ⌘ ⌥ ⇧ ⏎ keys people paste into shortcut documentation live here.
How to type ⌫
| Windows | Type 232B then press Alt+X |
|---|---|
| macOS | Press Ctrl+Cmd+Space, then search for “erase to the left” |
| Linux | Press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 232b, press Enter |
| HTML | ⌫ |
About Unicode’s Other symbol category
Unicode files this under "other symbol" — the catch-all for pictographs, signs and marks that are neither maths, currency, nor letter-like. It is the largest symbol category in the standard.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I type the ⌫ erase to the left symbol?
- On Windows, type 232B and press Alt+X. On Linux press Ctrl+Shift+U then 232b. On any system the quickest route is the copy button on this page.
- What is the code for ⌫?
- Erase To The Left is U+232B. In UTF-8 it takes 3 bytes. The table above lists every escape format.
- What kind of character is ⌫?
- Erase To The Left is filed under Other symbol in the Miscellaneous Technical block, and was introduced in Unicode 1.1. Unicode files this under "other symbol" — the catch-all for pictographs, signs and marks that are neither maths, currency, nor letter-like. It is the largest symbol category in the standard.