Try Gear emoji
Edit the text, then change the size.
Meaning & usage
What does the Gear emoji mean?
A cogwheel, for machinery, settings and how something works.
Mechanical and functional. Interface design has made it mean settings as reliably as it means machinery.
How to use ⚙️ naturally
Engineering posts, settings references and talk about process.
Object emoji usually point to an activity or topic rather than an emotion. They work well as labels in lists, captions and announcements, where the image makes the subject easy to scan.
From standard to slang
The history of ⚙️
- 2015
First defined as emoji
According to Unicode’s Emoji Versions data, Gear was first defined as emoji in Emoji 1.0, dated 2015. The first release where Unicode versioned the emoji set as a standard in its own right.
- Before the keyboard
Its visual roots
A technical symbol given emoji presentation in 2014, drawn as a single toothed wheel. Software adopted the same shape for settings, so the two meanings now arrive together.
- Today
How its use evolved
Engineering posts, settings references and talk about process.
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.
Buried three menus deep ⚙️
Whole process needed rethinking ⚙️
Workshop day, hands filthy ⚙️
When to use it
Using ⚙️ clearly
Engineering posts, settings references and talk about process. It lands as gear emoji or settings emoji 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 gear emoji
What does ⚙️ mean in a text message?
A cogwheel, for machinery, settings and how something works. Mechanical and functional. Interface design has made it mean settings as reliably as it means machinery.
Is ⚙️ always positive?
Not always. Its usual readings are gear emoji, settings emoji, ⚙️ meaning, and irony or the relationship between the people can flip any of them.
Why does ⚙️ look different on another device?
U+2699 U+FE0F 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 gear 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 gear emoji introduced?
Unicode’s Emoji Versions data first records ⚙️ as emoji in Emoji 1.0, dated 2015. 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.
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+2699 U+FE0F | 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 | \2699 \FE0F | For the content property. Keep the quotes around the whole value. | |
| JavaScript | \u{2699}\u{FE0F} | A string-literal escape. Needs the u flag inside a regular expression. | |
| URL-encoded | %E2%9A%99%EF%B8%8F | Percent-encoded UTF-8, for query strings and API requests. |
Reference card
Emoji details
- Unicode
- U+2699 U+FE0F
- Category
- Objects & Tech
- Also known as
- gear emojisettings emoji⚙️ meaning
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