What ★ means
★ is the black star. Unicode classifies it as an “other symbol” — Unicode's shelf for signs that are neither maths, money nor punctuation and files it in the Miscellaneous Symbols block; this site shelves it under Stars & signs.
Its appearance depends on the font and text styling.
How it is encoded
★ is a single code point, U+2605. In HTML that is ★, and in CSS \2605.
Don't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
1Why does ★ show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type ★
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 2605, then Alt+X to get ★.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “black star”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 2605, then Enter or Space.
HTML
★CSS
\2605Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
★
HTML hex
★
CSS content
content: "\2605";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E2%98%85
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.