Asterisk emoji
There are two asterisk emoji: the keycap asterisk *️⃣, drawn like a key on a keypad, and the eight-spoked asterisk ✳️, usually a white asterisk on a green tile.
How people use them
- *️⃣ keycap asterisk: phone-keypad and "press star" references, star ratings, and as a bold bullet in social posts. Its official emoji name is "keycap: *".
- ✳️ eight-spoked asterisk: highlighting an important point, marking new or featured items, and as a neutral decorative bullet. It has no strong slang meaning, which makes it a safe choice.
How they're built
Neither emoji is a single character, which explains most display problems.
| Emoji | Made of | Code points |
|---|---|---|
| *️⃣ | * + emoji style + combining keycap | U+002A U+FE0F U+20E3 |
| ✳️ | ✳ + emoji style | U+2733 U+FE0F |
U+FE0F is an invisible variation selector that says "draw this as an emoji". Without it, ✳ shows as a plain black symbol in most apps. U+20E3 draws a keycap around the character before it.
Why the keycap sometimes shows as *⃣ or a plain *
If an app or font doesn't support the keycap sequence, you see the pieces instead: an asterisk with a box around it, or just * followed by an empty square. Copying from the button above gives you the complete three-part sequence, which works in every current version of iOS, Android, Windows and macOS.
Related emoji that aren't asterisks
| Emoji | Name |
|---|---|
| Eight-pointed star | |
| Sparkle | |
| Star | |
| Glowing star | |
| Sparkles |
Want the plain, non-emoji version of ✳? It's on the eight-spoked asterisk page, along with all its codes.