Goodbye & Farewell Emoji

👋 Waving Hand is what most people mean by the goodbye emoji. It has been in Unicode since version 6.0 in 2010 and does double duty: at the start of a message it is hi, at the end it is bye. The words decide, so “👋” after “talk tomorrow” is a wave goodbye, and the same hand opens our Welcome Emoji collection. Skin tone versions came in 2015, and on Apple devices the hand has two small motion lines, which is why it reads as waving rather than a raised palm. For a stiller “stop, I’m going” gesture people use ✋ or 🖐️; 🤚 is the back of the hand, a wave seen from behind, and 🖖 is the Vulcan “live long and prosper” farewell.

🫡 Saluting Face arrived with Emoji 14.0 in 2021 and became the farewell of choice at work: “last day today 🫡” says you are leaving with respect and no drama. It grew out of the text salute o7 (a head and a raised arm) that gamers had used for years. It can also be dry or sarcastic, so with a manager keep it next to a warm sentence. 🤝 Handshake and 🙇 Person Bowing are the formal goodbyes; 🙏 says thank you for the time together; 🤙 is the relaxed “catch you later”, and ✌️ is the classic “peace, I’m out”.

Sad goodbye emoji: which face to send

The honest goodbye face is 🥲 Smiling Face with Tear (Emoji 13.0, 2020): happy for the person, sad to lose them, both at once. 🥹 Face Holding Back Tears is the moment just before the tears, perfect for a goodbye that moved you. 😢 and 😭 are the open crying, the second one dramatic enough for best friends only, and 😿 Crying Cat does the same with a lighter touch. 😔, 😞, ☹️ and 🙁 are the quiet, deflated goodbyes, and 🥺 begs “don’t go”. If the goodbye is a loss rather than a leaving, the Condolence & RIP Emoji page has the gentler set.

Not every farewell is sad. 😘, ☺️ and 😊 are the fond goodbyes between people who will text again in an hour; 😉 and 😌 are the relaxed “see you around”. 😮‍💨 Face Exhaling fits leaving a job you are glad to be done with, 🫠 Melting Face is an awkward or exhausted exit, and 🫥 Dotted Line Face is the joke version of fading out of a group chat. Hugs matter as much as faces: 🫂 People Hugging (2020) and 🤗 are the goodbye hug, 💔 and ❤️‍🩹 say it hurts, and 💌 is the goodbye note you will keep.

Farewell emoji for a last day at work, moving away or a trip

For a colleague who is leaving, the farewell message is usually a sentence plus 👋 🫡 and something from the party set: 🎉 🎊 🥂 🍾 for the send-off, 💐 🌹 🌻 for the flowers, 🎁 for the leaving gift, 📸 for the team photo and ✉️ 📩 📝 for the goodbye email or card everyone signs. 💼 🏢 📦 picture the desk packed into a box, and 🏠 is where they are heading. In Slack the shortcodes are :wave: for 👋 and :saluting_face: for 🫡, and a single 👋 reaction under someone’s farewell post is the normal office goodbye.

When someone is moving or travelling, the goodbye becomes a journey: ✈️ 🛫 for flying out (🛫 and 🛬 are departure and arrival, both from Unicode 7.0 in 2014), 🧳 the suitcase (Emoji 11.0, 2018), 🎒 the backpack, 🎫 🛂 the ticket and passport, then 🚗 🚕 🚌, 🚂 🚆 🚉 🛤️ and 🚢 ⛵ for whichever way they go. 🚶 🏃 👣 💨 and 🚪 are the walking-out-the-door goodbye, the playful “I’m off”. 🗺️ 🧭 🌍 🌎 🌏 📍 say they are starting somewhere new; more of these live in the Travel Emoji collection.

See you soon emoji: 🔜, sunsets and goodbyes that aren’t forever

Most goodbyes are temporary, and English has a word for each distance: bye, see you, later, talk soon. 🔜 SOON Arrow is the see you soon emoji, with 🔙 BACK for “be right back” and 🔚 END for signing off; all three came from the Japanese phone emoji sets into Unicode 6.0. 🌅 🌄 say “until tomorrow”, 🌇 🌆 🌃 close the day, and 🌙 ⭐ 🌟 🌠 ✨ are the goodnight goodbye (the Good Morning & Good Night Emoji page has the full set). ⏳ ⌛ count the time apart, and for the ache in between there is the Miss You Emoji collection.

Some languages do not split hello and goodbye at all: Hawaiian aloha, Italian ciao, Hebrew shalom and Korean annyeong all work both ways, which is why 👋 fits them so well, and 🌺 often stands in for aloha. Japanese is the opposite: sayōnara sounds final, so friends say mata ne (“see you”) or jaa ne with a wave. Japan also ties farewells to a season: the school year ends in March, and graduation goodbyes happen under the 🌸 cherry blossom. For the goodbye that really is final, 🕊️ 🪶 🪽 🦋 🍃 🎈 are the flying-away pictures: letting go, wishing someone well, watching them go.

Goodbye text symbols and waving kaomoji

If you want a goodbye that looks like text rather than a colour picture, the plain symbols copy as ordinary characters: “bye ♡”, “see you ✧”, “take care ☾”, “until next time ∞”. 🛪 is a text-style airplane, ➳ an arrow in flight, and ✦ ✧ ⋆ ★ scatter nicely around a sign-off in a bio or caption.

Japanese text faces wave with a katakana arm: ノ or its half-width twin ﾉ, ヾ, ヽ or a plain slash /, and the trailing waves 〜 ～ ~ are the wave itself. Put them together and you get the goodbye kaomoji people search for: ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ, ヾ(＾∇＾), (^_^)/~~, the tearful (;_;)/~~~ and (╥﹏╥)ノ. The parts are at the bottom of the grid; the whole faces are in the combos, and the full set of face parts is on the Kaomoji Symbols page.