Moon Symbols

Crescents that are named for quarters

The two text moons are ☽ and ☾. Their Unicode names are FIRST QUARTER MOON (U+263D) and LAST QUARTER MOON (U+263E), which is confusing because in everyday language a quarter moon is a half-lit disc. The names come from the astronomical phase, but fonts draw both characters as slim crescents and that is how people use them. The right-facing one is conventionally the waxing moon, and the left-facing one the waning, although a particular font may reverse the shapes.

Alongside them sit ☪ (STAR AND CRESCENT), ⏾ (POWER SLEEP SYMBOL) and ⚸ (BLACK MOON LILITH). ⏾ is a crescent drawn for the sleep button on power controls, and it makes a tidy small moon. ⚸ is an astrological point, not a moon, and shows a crescent over a small cross. It is included because people searching for moon symbols often find it, but you should know it is an astrology sign.

The phase emoji

The eight phase emoji run in order: 🌑 new moon, 🌒 waxing crescent, 🌓 first quarter, 🌔 waxing gibbous, 🌕 full moon, 🌖 waning gibbous, 🌗 last quarter and 🌘 waning crescent. Their official names end in the word SYMBOL, as in WAXING CRESCENT MOON SYMBOL. They are always coloured pictures, and which side is lit follows the Northern Hemisphere convention. A user in the Southern Hemisphere sees the real Moon lit on the opposite side, so the emoji for a given phase will look reversed compared with their sky.

Three more, 🌛 🌜 and 🌝, show moons with faces, and 🌙 (CRESCENT MOON) is the standard night emoji. 🌚, the new moon with a face, is used jokingly more than astronomically.

Astrology and astronomy signs

☽ doubles as the moon’s glyph in astrology and in the old alchemical and almanac tradition, ☉ is the Sun, ☿ is Mercury, ♀ is Venus, ♁ is Earth, ♂ is Mars, and ♃ ♄ ♅ ♆ are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto’s sign exists too but is not included here. These signs are standard, listed in Unicode under the Miscellaneous Symbols block, and used in almanacs and birth charts. ♀ and ♂ are also the female and male signs in biology and everyday use, so a reader may take them that way. They have emoji forms, and phones may draw them as coloured symbols.

Each of these has a plain Unicode name that describes the thing, not the sign, such as MERCURY for ☿, which is why a screen reader says “Mercury” rather than a description of the symbol.

Text and emoji presentation

The text crescents have no emoji form, so ☽ and ☾ stay in your text colour wherever the glyph exists. ☪ has an emoji form and may turn into a green or white picture on phones. ♀ ♂ and ☿ have emoji or emoji-like variants too. The phase and face emoji are always drawn in colour by the platform in its own style, so the 🌕 on Android is not the one on iPhone.

Use the invisible variation selectors U+FE0E (text) and U+FE0F (emoji) after a character that has both forms to ask for one. Apps may ignore them, so for a moon that stays plain, choose ☽ or ☾.

A note on the star and crescent

☪ is the star and crescent, a symbol closely associated with Islam and found on several national flags. Many people use it respectfully as a statement of identity, and others use ☽ or ☾ when they want a moon without that association. If you are decorating something unrelated, such as a sleep or night-time theme, ☽ or ☾ avoid unintended meaning.

Moons in bios, names and borders

A crescent is a favourite for night, dream and mystic themes. A pair of sparkles beside a crescent looks balanced; a row of phases ☽ ○ ☾ shows a cycle. The strings in the last group are multi-character items, so the labels are plain descriptions and not Unicode names. They use dots and stars from the aesthetic symbols page, and the sparkle symbols page has more shapes to sit beside a moon.

Platforms set their own rules for names and bios and may change them, and we have not verified every field. Check the field after saving. The text decorator can add moons to a name.

How to type a moon

1. Word on Windows. Type 263E and press Alt then X for ☾. Use 263D for ☽ and 262A for ☪.
2. Windows emoji panel. Windows key plus the period key, then search “moon” for the phase emoji.
3. Mac. In the Character Viewer, which Control, Command and Space opens, search “moon” or “quarter”.
4. iPhone and Android. The emoji keyboard has the phases and 🌙. For text crescents, copy from this page or set a text replacement such as “moon” that expands to ☾.
5. HTML. ☾ gives ☾ and ☽ gives ☽.

No Alt code produces a moon, so ignore lists that suggest one.

Accessibility

Screen readers announce each moon by its Unicode name. ☽ is “first quarter moon” and ☾ is “last quarter moon”, which may be surprising to a listener, since the sign looks like a crescent. Emoji are read as “new moon symbol” and so on. A row of all eight phases reads out eight names, so use it sparingly. For longer decoration strings, the fancy text accessibility guide explains what to keep short. If a moon appears as an empty box, see the boxes guide.