Back Arrow Emoji
The word BACK with an arrow, one of a set of English-language navigation buttons.
Try Back Arrow emoji
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Meaning & usage
What does the Back Arrow emoji mean?
The word BACK with an arrow, one of a set of English-language navigation buttons.
Utilitarian and slightly dated. It carries an English word inside the picture, which is unusual for emoji and means it does not travel across languages the way an arrow does.
How to use 🔙 naturally
Returning to a previous step, and jokes about going backwards.
Reaction symbols work like visual emphasis: they reinforce a word, rate an idea or replace a short response. Repetition normally increases intensity, but it can also make a message feel more performative.
From standard to slang
The history of 🔙
- 2010
First defined as emoji
According to Unicode’s Emoji Versions data, Back Arrow was first defined as emoji in Emoji 0.6, dated 2010. That label is retrospective: Unicode applied it later to the early mobile core it inherited from the Japanese carriers.
- Before the keyboard
Its visual roots
The word BACK inside an arrow, one of a set of English-language buttons the Japanese carriers encoded. Being language-specific makes it unusual in this set.
- Today
How its use evolved
Returning to a previous step, and jokes about going backwards.
Dates follow Unicode’s official Emoji Versions chart. Versions before Emoji 1.0 are labelled retrospectively. See the history of emoji.
In conversation
Examples of 🔙 in messages
These examples show the emoji in complete messages, where the words make its intended tone easier to read.
Skip to the previous section 🔙
Straight back to the drawing board 🔙
Rewinding to what we agreed in March 🔙
When to use it
Using 🔙 clearly
Returning to a previous step, and jokes about going backwards. It lands as back arrow emoji or 🔙 meaning when the rest of the message supports that reading, and it is the surrounding words that do the deciding — so in a sensitive, professional or cross-cultural conversation, say the thing outright as well.
Common questions
About the back arrow emoji
What does 🔙 mean in a text message?
The word BACK with an arrow, one of a set of English-language navigation buttons. Utilitarian and slightly dated. It carries an English word inside the picture, which is unusual for emoji and means it does not travel across languages the way an arrow does.
Is 🔙 always positive?
Not always. Its usual readings are back arrow emoji, 🔙 meaning, back button emoji, and irony or the relationship between the people can flip any of them.
Why does 🔙 look different on another device?
U+1F519 identifies the emoji; the picture is a font, drawn separately by Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung. Only the artwork changes, never the character.
How do I copy and paste the back arrow emoji?
Use the copy button at the top of this page. 🔙 is a character, not an image, so it pastes into messages, captions and filenames as ordinary text.
When was the back arrow emoji introduced?
Unicode’s Emoji Versions data first records 🔙 as emoji in Emoji 0.6, dated 2010. Early emoji version numbers can be retrospective, so this date describes its place in the standardised emoji set rather than the first-ever appearance of the underlying symbol.
Easily confused
🔙 compared with similar emoji
These sit close enough in meaning that people reach for the wrong one. Here is what actually separates them.
Back Arrow or Left Arrow?
⬅️ is a direction. 🔙 is a labelled button, which is why it looks at home in an interface and slightly odd in a sentence.
For developers
🔙 in code
Every value below is generated from the character itself, so it stays correct even where a file encoding cannot hold the emoji directly.
| Format | Value | When to use it | Copy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode | U+1F519 | The standard reference. Use it to search a character map or a spec. | |
| HTML (hex) | 🔙 | For HTML and XML. Safe in files that are not saved as UTF-8. | |
| HTML (decimal) | 🔙 | The same reference in decimal. Both render identically. | |
| CSS | \1F519 | For the content property. Keep the quotes around the whole value. | |
| JavaScript | \u{1F519} | A string-literal escape. Needs the u flag inside a regular expression. | |
| URL-encoded | %F0%9F%94%99 | Percent-encoded UTF-8, for query strings and API requests. |
Reference card
Emoji details
- Unicode
- U+1F519
- Category
- Symbols & Reactions
- Also known as
- back arrow emoji🔙 meaningback button emoji
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