What ➿ means
A looped line that is, in Japan, the toll-free phone logo. This emoji was born on Japanese mobile phones before emoji went worldwide. The picture is the logo of Free Dial (フリーダイヤル), the service that makes a call free for the caller; Japanese numbers starting 0120 (and 0800) are Free Dial numbers, and shops, hotlines and adverts print the double loop beside them to say 'this call costs you nothing'.
When the Japanese sets were brought into Unicode in 2010 the character was named simply 'double curly loop', and the phone meaning did not travel with it. Everyone else saw a swirl, and used it as one: a flourish in a bio, a divider between lines, a curl of ribbon or cord, or a quick picture of something that keeps looping.
What does it mean when someone sends ➿?
Usually nothing heavy: decoration, 'again', or 'stuck in a loop'. Beside a song or a video it means they have it on repeat; beside a worry it means their thoughts keep circling. On its own it is filler, the way people scatter ✨ or 〰️.
The voicemail reading comes from the look of a curly phone cord or a tape, and you will meet it mainly in lists of emoji meanings; nobody reads a bare ➿ as 'you have a message'. If the sender seems to expect you to do something, ask rather than guess.
Light and neutral; it carries no feeling of its own, so the words around it decide what it says.
Outside Japan nobody reads ➿ as 'this number is free' or 'call me', so write the instruction out.
What it means when someone sends it to you
4 readingsDon't confuse it with
3Combination ideas
2Worth knowing
- The official name 'double curly loop' is why the phone meaning got lost: nothing in it hints that millions of Japanese adverts use this shape to mean 'free call'.
- Fonts disagree about its shape. Some draw two upright loops side by side, others a flattened sideways chain, which is how it gets mistaken for the infinity sign.
Questions people ask
3Is ➿ the infinity symbol?
No. The infinity sign ∞ is a closed figure-eight; ➿ is an open line with loose ends and two curls. Some fonts flatten ➿ sideways, which is where the mix-up starts.
Does ➿ mean voicemail?
It can be meant that way, but only when the message is already about calls or messages. There is no standard voicemail emoji, and most people sending ➿ mean decoration or 'on repeat'.
Why is ➿ next to phone numbers in Japan?
Because it is the Free Dial logo. A number marked with it, usually beginning 0120, is toll-free: the business pays for the call, not you.
How to type ➿
:loop:the common shortcode; support varies by platform.➿Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.