Speech Bubble & Chat Emoji

💬 Speech Balloon is the speech bubble emoji most people mean. It stands for a message, a comment, a chat or simply "let's talk", and it has been in Unicode since version 6.0 (2010), when the first big emoji set was encoded from the Japanese carrier sets. The search for a "speech bubble emoji with dots" is about this one: Apple, Google, Samsung and most other vendors draw it with three dots inside, the same ellipsis a messaging app shows while the other person is typing, which is why it reads as "a reply is coming" or "let's discuss".

💭 Thought Balloon is the cloud-shaped bubble from comics, the one that trails little circles down to the thinker's head. It marks a thought you did not say out loud: a daydream, a wish, an idea you are turning over, or "thinking of you" when it follows a name. 🗨️ Left Speech Bubble and 🗯️ Right Anger Bubble came later, in Unicode 7.0 (2014), from the old Wingdings fonts, which is why most keyboards show them as plain black shapes and why people search for the "black speech bubble emoji". 🗨️ is an empty bubble pointing left, used as a quote mark or a comment icon; 🗯️ is the jagged bubble a comic character shouts in, so it carries anger, a yell or a sharp retort.

👁️‍🗨️ Eye in Speech Bubble is the odd one out: an eye inside a bubble, and the only emoji created for an advertising campaign. The Ad Council's "I Am A Witness" anti-bullying campaign launched it in 2015, and Apple added it in iOS 9.1 the same year. It means "I see this, I'm a witness", a way to stand up for someone who is being picked on; it is also a sequence of 👁️ and 🗨️ joined with a zero-width joiner, so on a device that does not support it you will see the two parts side by side.

Talking, shushing and speechless: the faces of a conversation

🗣️ Speaking Head is a grey silhouette with sound lines coming out of its mouth. In chats it means someone is talking, often loudly: a hot take, a quote, a rant, or in a group "🗣️ SAY IT LOUDER". People stack it before a sentence in capitals to show they are shouting. 👄 Mouth and 👂 Ear are its quiet partners: the mouth for lips and speaking (and the 👁️👄👁️ meme), the ear for "I'm listening" or "all ears". 🦻 Ear with Hearing Aid and 🧏 Deaf Person belong to the same conversation, hearing and sign language, and arrived in Emoji 12.0 (2019).

The other half of talking is not talking. 🤫 Shushing Face (Emoji 5.0, 2017) holds a finger to its lips: shh, keep it quiet, it's a secret. 🤐 Zipper-Mouth Face (Unicode 8.0, 2015) has its mouth zipped shut: "my lips are sealed", "I'm not saying a word", or a promise to keep a secret. 😶 Face Without Mouth has nothing to say at all: speechless, no comment, awkward silence. 🙊 Speak-No-Evil Monkey covers its mouth, from the Japanese three wise monkeys, and is sent for "oops, I shouldn't have said that" as well as for giggly embarrassment; 🙉 Hear-No-Evil is its "I'm not listening" partner. ㊙️ is the Japanese character 秘 (secret) in a circle, so 🤫㊙️ is a secret twice over.

Between talking and silence sit the reaction faces: 🤭 Face with Hand Over Mouth for a giggle or gossip, 🫢 for a gasp at what you just heard, 😮 and 😯 for an open-mouthed "oh", 🤔 Thinking Face for "hmm" (the live version of a thought bubble). 🤬 Face with Symbols on Mouth is a swearing face: the scribbles across its mouth are the grawlix, the comic-strip convention for a curse word the artist won't print. 🤥 Lying Face, with a Pinocchio nose, is for a fib or "sure you did". 💢 Anger Symbol is the manga anger mark that pops up beside an angry character's head and goes with 🗯️ when words fail.

Loud and clear: announcement emoji, volume and calls

📢 Loudspeaker and 📣 Megaphone are the two announcement emoji. 📢 is the public-address horn, used for official notices, a PSA or "attention everyone"; 📣 is the hand-held cheering megaphone, used for shoutouts, rallies and "spread the word". The speaker series 🔇 🔈 🔉 🔊 runs from muted to full volume and doubles as "turn the sound on" for a video. 🔔 Bell and 🔕 Bell with Slash are notifications on and off, and 📯 Postal Horn, the old mail coach horn, is a fanfare for news. 🚨 Police Car Light is how people flag breaking news or an urgent message, and 🪧 Placard (2020) is a protest sign, a message held up for all to see.

The punctuation emoji are what goes inside the bubble. ❗ and ❕ exclaim, ❓ and ❔ ask, ‼️ doubles the shout and ⁉️ is the "wait, what?!" of disbelief. The red ones are the loud originals; the white (in practice grey) ❔ and ❕ are the quieter versions. Add 🙋 Person Raising Hand for "I have a question", 🤷 Shrugging for "no idea" and 💁 Person Tipping Hand for a sassy "just saying".

For an actual conversation rather than a text one, there are the phones: 📞 Telephone Receiver is "call me" or "on a call", ☎️ Telephone is the vintage desk phone, 📱 Mobile Phone and 📲 Mobile Phone with Arrow (an incoming call or "send it to my phone"), 📳 Vibration Mode for a phone on silent, 🤙 Call Me Hand for "hit me up", and the retro 📟 Pager and 📠 Fax Machine. 🎤 Microphone and 🎙️ Studio Microphone stand for speaking into a mic: karaoke, a speech, a podcast, a mic drop. The envelopes ✉️ 📧 📨 📩 and 💌 are written messages, from email to a love letter.

Speech bubble symbols and chat bubble text to copy and paste

If you need a speech bubble that behaves like text, for a username, a Discord channel name, a bio or a document, use the plain pictographs that share the Unicode 7.0 Wingdings block with 🗨️ and 🗯️: 🗩 Right Speech Bubble, 🗪 Two Speech Bubbles (the classic chat icon), 🗫 Three Speech Bubbles (a group chat), 🗬 and 🗭 Left and Right Thought Bubble, 🗮 Left Anger Bubble, 🗰 Mood Bubble and 🗱 Lightning Mood Bubble (a shock or a sudden idea). They are not emoji, so they never turn into colour pictures and take the colour and size of your font. The same block gives the old speaker icons 🕨 🕩 🕪, bullhorns 🕫 🕬, and the phones 🕿 🕻 🕽 🖁; the older ☏ ✆ and ℡ are telephone signs from 1990s dingbat and letterlike sets. The one thing to know is that these characters show up only where a font covers them (Windows, most Linux systems and recent Android do; iPhones show some as empty boxes), so test them where your text will be read.

Quotation marks are the typographer's speech bubble. The curly pair “ ” and ‘ ’ are the proper English quotes, „ opens a quote in German and Polish, « » are the French and Russian guillemets, and 「 」 are the corner brackets Japanese and Chinese use for dialogue. The heavy ornaments ❝ ❞ ❛ ❜ are decorative quotes for a pull quote or an aesthetic caption. Add … for a trailing or typing pause, ‽ the interrobang for a question shouted in disbelief, ⁇ and ⁈ for double doubt, and ¿ ¡ which open a question or an exclamation in Spanish. The Japanese 🈤 is the character 声 (voice) in a square, used on TV listings for a dubbed or voice-acted programme.