Play button symbol: ▶ ► ▷ ⏵ and which triangle to use
The play button symbol is a right-pointing triangle, and Unicode has it in more than one size and weight. Black right-pointing triangle is the original, in Unicode since version 1.1 in 1993; with an emoji variation selector after it, it becomes the play button emoji, a white triangle on a blue square on most phones. Black right-pointing pointer is the squat, wide triangle that old Windows fonts and DOS screens used, and it is what most people mean by “play button symbol black”: it stays a plain black glyph in any font and never turns into a coloured emoji. is the outlined play symbol, and are the small versions used as bullets and menu arrows, and is the outlined pointer.
are the medium triangles added in Unicode 7.0 (2014) specifically for user-interface controls, so that a play, rewind, up and down button could be set in text at a consistent size. Their centred twins , the equilateral arrowheads and the right-angled came in the same release, which pulled hundreds of Wingdings and Webdings shapes into Unicode. They look the same at a glance but sit differently on the line: is centred on the x-height, sits on the baseline and is taller, is wider than it is high.
For an Instagram bio or a username, use or without the emoji selector, because they stay black and small and work in names where emoji are rejected. For a chat message, shows up as the familiar blue button. For a playlist title or a “now playing” caption, with the text selector forces the plain triangle even on iPhone. If you only need the shape and not the meaning, the Triangle Symbols and Arrow Symbols collections have the diagonal, half-filled and dotted triangles too.
Pause symbol, stop symbol and record button in text
Pause button , stop button and record button are younger than you would think. Unicode had a play triangle from 1993 and a combined play or pause button from Unicode 6.0 in 2010, but the standalone pause, stop and record characters only arrived in Unicode 7.0 in 2014 and were made emoji in 2015. That is why older documents, and many fonts, show the pause symbol as two separate bars instead of one character.
The two-bar text version is still the most used pause symbol online. (two heavy vertical bars) is the boldest, ‖ (double vertical line, U2016) is a single character that works in any font, and , and give thinner or blockier bars. The stop symbol as text is a filled square: black square, or the emoji squares and . The record symbol is a filled circle: black circle, the larger , or the black circle emoji. On real hardware the record dot is red, and chat apps often pair with to say “recording” or “live”.
Eject is older, from Unicode 4.0 in 2003, because it was already printed on every CD drive and VCR; today it mostly means “remove the disk” on a Mac and, in slang, “I'm out of here”. All of these shapes are codified as equipment symbols in IEC 60417, the same catalogue the power button comes from, which is why a play triangle on a 1970s cassette deck, a DVD remote and a phone screen all look alike.
Skip, fast forward, rewind, shuffle and repeat
Doubling the triangle means speed: fast-forward and rewind (Unicode calls the “fast reverse button”). Adding a bar means jumping to the next or previous track: next track and last track. The single left triangle is the reverse button, play backwards, which real tape decks had and streaming apps do not. The vertical pair are the up and down buttons on a remote (channel, menu, volume) and are their fast versions, which in chat usually read as “way up” and “way down”.
Shuffle, repeat and repeat single (the loop with a small 1) all date from Unicode 6.0 in 2010, when Japanese carrier emoji were unified. is also the general “again” or “retweet” symbol, and next to a song title is the standard way to admit you have had one track on loop all day. The same release added the four speaker emoji, muted, low, medium and high volume, which make a neat volume slider when written in a row.
The sound side of the panel is rounded out by level slider (a mixer fader) and control knobs, both from Unicode 7.0, and headphones. For instruments, notes and the music emoji proper, see Music Emoji & Note Symbols; for cameras and film, Movie & Film Emoji.
Power, brightness and the rest of the remote
A player has more than transport keys. Power (the broken circle with a line), power on/off, power on and sleep were added to Unicode 9.0 in 2016 after a public proposal to make the IEC power symbols typeable; heavy circle serves as the power-off symbol. dim and bright are the brightness buttons, cinema is the Japanese sign for a movie theatre or a “now showing” marker, and antenna bars is the signal-strength indicator from a phone's status bar.
Finally the things you press play on: television, radio, videocassette, CD and DVD. They turn a row of control buttons into a scene: is a throwback, is “listening to the album”, is a paused show.
How to type the play button symbol on a keyboard, in Word and on a phone
On Windows, hold Alt and type 16 on the numeric keypad for , Alt+17 for , Alt+30 for and Alt+31 for . These four come from the old DOS code page 437, which stored them at positions 16, 17, 30 and 31, and the shortcut has survived every version since. Win+. opens the emoji panel, where the Symbols tab lists under “General punctuation” and “Geometric symbols”. In Word, type the code 25B6 and press Alt+X to turn it into , or 23F8 then Alt+X for ; Insert Symbol Geometric Shapes has the whole triangle family.
On a Mac, Control+Command+Space opens the Character Viewer; search “triangle”, “pause” or “play”. On iPhone and Android, the emoji keyboard finds under “Symbols” or by typing “play”, but it gives you only the emoji versions, so copy the plain from this page when you need text. In HTML, ▶ is , ► is , ⏸ is , ⏹ is and ⏺ is . A text symbol scales with the font and inherits its colour, which is the main reason to use one instead of a play button PNG.
Symbols
84Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
The player buttons
the emoji set, in the order they sit on a player
Play triangles as text, in every style
right is play, left is rewind; each row is one weight or size
Pause, stop and record as text
double a bar for ❚❚ pause; squares stop, dots record
How to use them
6 situationsClick to copyPlay & Pause Symbols combos
15Worth knowing
- Unicode had a play triangle from 1993 and a combined play-or-pause from 2010, but no standalone pause , stop or record character until Unicode 7.0 in 2014. For two decades the pause symbol had to be typed as two bars.
- Alt16 still types on Windows because the 1981 IBM PC code page 437 stored at byte positions 16, 17, 30 and 31, in the slots that other systems reserved for control characters.
- The medium triangles were encoded in 2014 precisely so that software could show play, rewind, up and down buttons as text at one consistent size; the older do not match each other in height or width.
- The power symbols reached Unicode 9.0 in 2016 after a public campaign to make the IEC 60417 power icons typeable; the circle-and-line design is usually read as a binary 1 inside a 0.
- is officially named “fast reverse button”, not rewind, and is the “reverse button”: play backwards, a control that cassette and reel decks had but almost no streaming app offers.
Questions people ask
8How do I copy and paste the play button symbol?
Tap or the emoji on this page and it is copied; paste it with CtrlV, CmdV or a long press. The text versions and stay black and work in bios and usernames; is the blue emoji button.
What is the play button symbol in text?
(black right-pointing triangle, U25B6) is the standard one; is the wide pointer from old Windows fonts, is the outlined version and is the text-sized medium triangle. All four are plain text, not emoji.
Is there a pause symbol I can type as text?
Yes: is a single character, and or ‖ give the classic two bars in any font. Add UFE0F to get the emoji button.
How do I type the play button symbol on a keyboard?
On Windows hold Alt and type 16 on the numeric keypad for , or press Win. and open the Symbols tab. In Word, type 25B6 and press AltX. On a Mac use ControlCommandSpace and search “triangle”.
What does the pause symbol tattoo mean?
Two bars stand for a pause, not an end: a break taken on purpose, a loss paused rather than finished, or a reminder to slow down. Paired with a play triangle it means the story goes on.
Where did the play and pause symbols come from?
They were printed on reel-to-reel and cassette decks long before screens: the triangle points the direction the tape plays, two triangles mean fast, a square means stop and a round dot means record. The symbols are standardised in IEC 60417, which is why every device uses the same set.
Is there a play button emoji in black and white?
The emoji is blue on most platforms, but the same character without the emoji selector, or , shows as a plain black triangle. and are always black and white.
What is the Unicode for the play pause symbol?
play-or-pause is U23EF. Play is U25B6, pause is U23F8, stop is U23F9, record is U23FA and eject is U23CF.
