Play button emoji ▶️ and the media buttons: pause, rewind, fast-forward, repeat
The transport controls from a cassette deck, as emoji. Copy the play, pause, rewind and repeat buttons here.
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The media control set
These come from the Miscellaneous Technical block and became emoji in Emoji 1.0 (2015), with ▶️ ⏩ ⏪ ⏫ ⏬ 🔀 🔁 🔂 already present in 2010. Most platforms draw them as white symbols on a blue square. Music and video accounts use them as literal controls — ▶️ before a link means “watch” — and everyone else uses them as verbs: ⏸️ “taking a break”, ⏪ “throwback”, ⏩ “skip to the good part”, 🔁 “on repeat”.
| Emoji | Name | Use it for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| play buttonU+25B6 U+FE0F | Watch, listen, “now playing”, go | ||
| pause buttonU+23F8 U+FE0F | On hold, taking a break, hiatus | ||
| play or pause buttonU+23EF U+FE0F | Toggle; rarely used alone | ||
| stop buttonU+23F9 U+FE0F | End, stop; less common than 🛑 | ||
| record buttonU+23FA U+FE0F | Recording, live, filming | ||
| next track buttonU+23ED U+FE0F | Skip, next, onward | ||
| last track buttonU+23EE U+FE0F | Back, previous | ||
| fast-forward buttonU+23E9 | Speed up, skip ahead | ||
| fast reverse buttonU+23EA | Rewind, throwback, “#TBT” | ||
| fast up button / fast down buttonU+23EB · U+23EC | Fast up / down buttons | Scroll or move quickly; volume | |
| repeat buttonU+1F501 | On repeat; also stands in for the retweet arrows | ||
| repeat single buttonU+1F502 | One song on loop | ||
| shuffle tracks buttonU+1F500 | Random order, mix it up | ||
| eject buttonU+23CF U+FE0F | Rare; “out” |
Look-alikes
🔼 and 🔽 are the small blue up and down triangles for scrolling, not media buttons. 🔺 🔻 are the red triangles from the triangle guide. For a literal “stop”, 🛑 stop sign is far more common than ⏹️. For arrows and directions see the arrow emoji guide.
Reverse, next, and redo emoji
The reverse button emoji ◀️ and fast reverse button ⏪ both point left. ◀️ shows a single triangle, while ⏪ has two. They signal going back, rewinding, or a throwback. The next track button ⏭️ skips forward with two triangles and a vertical bar, often shortened to “next” in playlist contexts. There is no official redo emoji, but the repeat button 🔁 works as a stand-in: one loop means “again” or “redo”.
When you want to show that you are going back to an earlier point, ◀️ is the clearest choice. It is less common than ⏪ in throwback posts, but both work. The next button ⏭️ is useful for announcing new content or asking someone to move on to the following part.
The play button as a YouTube emoji
The play button ▶️ is the closest thing to an official YouTube emoji, because YouTube’s logo is a play button in a red rectangle. There is no dedicated YouTube emoji, but pairing ▶️ with a red square 🟥 suggests the platform. The pause button ⏸️ is sometimes called the pause logo, and it appears in media players as two vertical bars. Both can be copied straight from this page.
Many people look for a “YouTube emoji” to copy and paste into captions or comments. Since a YouTube-specific emoji does not exist, combining ▶️ with a red square or a red circle is a recognised stand-in. For example, “New video ▶️🟥” reads instantly as a YouTube update.
Questions people ask
Is there a pause emoji?
Yes, ⏸️ pause button (U+23F8), two vertical bars on a blue square. It is used for breaks and hiatuses as well as literal playback.
What is the retweet emoji?
There is no official one; 🔁 repeat button is the closest to X’s two-arrow retweet icon and is what most people use.
Which emoji means rewind?
⏪ fast reverse button, two triangles pointing left. It is the throwback emoji in #TBT posts.
What is the shuffle symbol emoji?
The shuffle emoji 🔀 shows two arrows crossing to indicate random order. Use it when a playlist is playing on shuffle or when things are mixed up.
Is there a pause logo emoji?
Yes, ⏸️ pause button is the pause logo: two vertical bars. People use it to mean taking a break or pausing a moment in captions.
About this guide
Written and maintained by the Emoji Directory editorial team, without ads or sponsorship. Meanings describe how the emoji is commonly used in public posts and messages, not an official definition. Names, code points, versions, keywords and translations come from the Unicode Emoji 18.0 and CLDR data; shortcodes from the gemoji project. Facts were checked against the sources listed above. Last reviewed . Spotted a mistake or a new usage? Tell us, or read how the directory is made.
