Try Telephone emoji
Edit the text, then change the size.
Meaning & usage
What does the Telephone emoji mean?
An old rotary-style telephone, for calls and getting in touch.
Plain and slightly antique. 📞 is the handset alone, and 📱 is the one people actually own.
How to use ☎️ naturally
Call requests, contact details and anything about picking up the phone.
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 ☎️
- 2010
First defined as emoji
According to Unicode’s Emoji Versions data, Telephone 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
One of the oldest symbols in the set, drawn as a red desk phone with a handset on top. Nobody has used one for years, and the shape remains the clearest picture of a call.
- Today
How its use evolved
Call requests, contact details and anything about picking up the phone.
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.
Ring me when you land ☎️
Been trying all afternoon ☎️
On hold for thirty-five minutes ☎️
When to use it
Using ☎️ clearly
Call requests, contact details and anything about picking up the phone. It lands as telephone emoji or phone 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 telephone emoji
What does ☎️ mean in a text message?
An old rotary-style telephone, for calls and getting in touch. Plain and slightly antique. 📞 is the handset alone, and 📱 is the one people actually own.
Is ☎️ always positive?
Not always. Its usual readings are telephone emoji, phone emoji, ☎️ meaning, and irony or the relationship between the people can flip any of them.
Why does ☎️ look different on another device?
U+260E 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 telephone 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 telephone 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.
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+260E 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 | \260E \FE0F | For the content property. Keep the quotes around the whole value. | |
| JavaScript | \u{260E}\u{FE0F} | A string-literal escape. Needs the u flag inside a regular expression. | |
| URL-encoded | %E2%98%8E%EF%B8%8F | Percent-encoded UTF-8, for query strings and API requests. |
Reference card
Emoji details
- Unicode
- U+260E U+FE0F
- Category
- Objects & Tech
- Also known as
- telephone emojiphone emoji☎️ meaning
Keep browsing