A classic magnifying glass, lens tilted left, handle in hand, this is the emoji most often read as a literal search icon. It stands in for investigating, zooming in, or double-checking a detail, closely paired with its mirror image, 🔎 Magnifying Glass Tilted Right.
What 🔍 means
Tilt left or tilt right, the job is identical — 🔍 and 🔎 arrived together as adjacent codepoints, and beyond which way the handle points, nothing separates them. Most people just take whichever one the keyboard offers first.
How and when to use it
- If you're texting someone to have a 'closer look' at something or someone else, use 🔍. For instance, "I don't think you get my point. Why don't you take a closer look at what I'm talking about? 🔍"
- This applies even while informing someone in a casual context that you would look at something more closely. Feel free to use 🔍 eve if your post caption resonates with this use-case.
- You could also use 🔍 while indicating that you're looking for something or 'in search' of something or someone; it can be in a post caption, a textual conversation, any format. For instance, "All that I've been looking for is right here, within all that I am 🔍".
- Also, just a reminder; 🔍 refers to someone right-handed, using the magnifying lens.
Other Names
- 🔍 Magnifying Lens
- 🔍 Magnifier
- 🔍 Zoom In
- 🔍 Search Icon
- 🔍 Right-Handed Magnifier User
- 🔍 Left-Pointing Magnifying Lens
- 🔍 Find
The lowdown
- Category
- Objects › light & video
- Codepoints
U+1F50D- Emoji version
- Emoji 0.6
- Shortcodes
:mag:- Keywords
- glass, lab, left, left-pointing, magnifying, science, search, tilted, tool
How it looks across platforms
Seeing a blank box instead of the emoji somewhere? Here's why that happens. Curious why the designs above don't match to begin with? Here's why that happens too.
⚡ Quick round
Which joined the keyboard first — 🔍 Magnifying Glass Tilted Left or 🇨🇻 Flag: Cape Verde?