# Kaomoji

> A searchable collection of more than 1,400 kaomoji (Japanese emoticons) and 370 emoji combos, sorted by mood, animal and theme: tap one to copy it.

- Page: https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/
- Type: free online tool (Symbols & emoji), no sign-up, runs in the browser
- Publisher: Linguaholic (https://linguaholic.com/), made by Marcel Iseli
- Last updated: October 2, 2026
- Open it pre-filled: https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?category=shrug
  - `q`: search words: a mood, animal, action or theme (matches the tags, e.g. cat, crying, sparkles, sad cat); a symbol such as ω finds kaomoji that contain it (for example `cat`)
  - `category`: one category. Kaomoji: happy, love, cat, crying, sad, shrug, blush, sparkles, bunny, bear, dog, animals, angry, table-flip, excited, laughing, kiss, hug, wink, cool, lenny, uwu, surprised, nervous, confused, unimpressed, sleepy, sick, hello, thanks, thumbs-up, strong, dance, run, peek, eating, flowers, angel, friends, writing, pointing, holidays, weather, dividers, symbols. Emoji combos: cute-combos, aesthetic-combos, cozy-combos, pink-combos, color-combos, love-combos, sky-combos, nature-combos, beach-combos, summer-combos, fall-combos, winter-combos, spring-combos, christmas-combos, halloween-combos, celebration-combos, food-combos, music-combos, hobby-combos, travel-combos, retro-combos, dark-combos, fairy-combos, funny-combos, mood-combos, animal-combos, bio-combos, kaomoji-combos. Or kaomoji / emoji-combos for a whole group (for example `shrug`)

## Kaomoji to copy and paste

This **kaomoji** collection has 1,445 Japanese emoticons to copy and paste, such as (◕‿◕) and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, sorted into 45 categories, plus **374 emoji combos** in 28 themes. Tap any of them to copy it, then paste it into a message, a bio, a username or a comment.

1. Type what you are after in the search box, such as *cat*, *crying* or *sparkles*, or pick a category from the menu.
2. Tap a kaomoji. It is copied at once, and the button says “Copied”.
3. Paste it wherever you can type. The ones you copied last stay in the **Recent** row.

## What are kaomoji?

**Kaomoji** (顔文字) is Japanese for “face characters”: *kao* means face and *moji* means character. A kaomoji is a little face or figure built from ordinary text characters, and it has been part of Japanese online writing since the 1980s. Because a kaomoji is plain text, it works in places where pictures don’t: usernames, file names, plain-text email and old chat programs.

| Kind | How it works |
| --- | --- |
| Emoticon :-) ;-) :-( | A sideways face typed with keyboard characters. You tilt your head to read it, and the mouth shows the feeling. |
| Kaomoji (^_^) (T_T) (>_<) | An upright face, read without tilting your head. The eyes show the feeling, and characters from many writing systems add arms, cheeks, animals and props. |
| Emoji 😀 😭 🤷 | A single character that is shown as a small picture. Each phone and computer draws it in its own style. The word is Japanese too: *e* (picture) + *moji* (character). |

## The best-known kaomoji and their names

These 30 are the ones people ask for by name. You can copy each of them at the top of the tool, under “The classics”.

| Name and kaomoji | What it shows |
| --- | --- |
| Shrug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ | Raised shoulders and open hands: “I don’t know”, “who knows?”, “oh well”. |
| Table flip (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ | Throwing a table over in frustration, usually as a joke. |
| Putting the table back ┬─┬ ノ( ゜-゜ノ) | The calm answer to a table flip: setting the table upright again. |
| Lenny face ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) | A sly, mischievous grin with raised eyebrows. |
| Look of disapproval ಠ_ಠ | A flat, unimpressed stare. |
| Smile (^_^) | The classic Japanese smiley: the eyes do the smiling. |
| Cute smile (｡◕‿◕｡) | Big round eyes and rosy cheeks. |
| Heart eyes (♥‿♥) | In love with someone or something. |
| Crying (T_T) | Each T is a closed eye with a stream of tears. |
| Tearful eyes (ಥ_ಥ) | Welling up, close to crying. |
| Eyes squeezed shut (>_<) | Frustration, embarrassment, or “ouch”. |
| Nervous smile (^_^;) | A smile with a drop of sweat: awkward or embarrassed. |
| Raised eyebrow (o_O) | Confused or taken aback. |
| Side eye (¬_¬) | A doubtful sideways look. |
| Deep bow m(_ _)m | A bow with both hands on the floor: an apology or a big thank-you. |
| Orz orz | A person on hands and knees (o is the head, r the arms, z the legs): defeat or despair. |
| Shobon (´・ω・`) | Downcast and let down. |
| Shakiin (｀･ω･´) | Alert, ready and determined. |
| Bear ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ | A bear’s face with round ears. |
| Cat (=^･ω･^=) | A cat’s face with ears and whiskers. |
| Hug (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ | Arms stretched out for a hug. |
| Sparkles (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ | Throwing glitter in the air: joy, magic, “ta-da”. |
| Fists up (ง •̀_•́)ง | Ready for a challenge: “let’s do this”. |
| Happy walk ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ | Strolling along without a care. |
| Reaching out ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ | Both arms held out to give or to take: “take my energy”. |
| Finger guns (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ | Pointing with both hands: “you got it”. |
| Sunglasses (⌐■_■) | Cool and unbothered. |
| Arms up ＼(^o^)／ | Cheering with both arms in the air. |
| Sleeping (-_-) zzZ | Closed eyes and a trail of z’s. |
| Uwu uwu | A cute, content face: each u is a closed eye and the w is the mouth. |

## How to type the shrug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The shrug is made of 9 characters. The face is ツ, the Japanese katakana letter *tsu*, set in parentheses; the hands are two macrons (¯); the arms are a backslash, two underscores and a slash. Only ツ and ¯ are missing from an English keyboard, which is why most people copy the shrug instead of typing it. The tool has 32 shrugs; if you use one often, save it once and let your device type it for you:

| Device | How to get the shrug |
| --- | --- |
| iPhone and iPad | Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement. Paste the shrug as the phrase and choose a shortcut such as `shrug`. The Japanese keyboard also has a `^_^` key that offers kaomoji. |
| Android | On the Google keyboard, open the emoji panel and switch to the `:-)` tab, which holds the shrug and other kaomoji. Or add a shortcut in the keyboard’s settings, under Dictionary → Personal dictionary. |
| Windows | Press the Windows key and the period key together. The emoji panel that opens has a kaomoji tab, marked `;-)`. |
| Mac | System Settings → Keyboard → Text Replacements. Add the shrug with a shortcut of your choice. |
| Discord | Type `/shrug` to add it to a message. `/tableflip` and `/unflip` work the same way. |

**Why the shrug loses an arm.** Discord, Reddit and other apps that use Markdown read the backslash and the underscores as formatting, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ comes out as ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Each of those characters needs a backslash in front of it: `¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯`. Tick **Copy for Discord and Reddit** in the tool and every kaomoji is copied that way, so (*^_^*) keeps its stars too. For bold, spoilers and code blocks, see the [Discord Text Formatter](https://linguaholic.com/tools/discord-text-formatter/).

## Why do some kaomoji show up as boxes?

Kaomoji borrow characters from writing systems all over the world. Your device needs a font that contains each one; when no font has it, you see an empty box or a question mark instead. That is rare on current phones and computers, but older devices and some apps and games (which bring their own font) miss a few.

| Character | Borrowed from | Used as |
| --- | --- | --- |
| ツ | Japanese katakana (the letter tsu) U+30C4 | A smiling face ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ |
| ω | Greek (small omega) U+03C9 | A cat-like mouth (・ω・) |
| Д | Cyrillic (the letter De) U+0414 | A wide-open mouth (ﾟДﾟ) |
| ಠ | Kannada, a script of southern India (the letter ṭha) U+0CA0 | A staring eye ಠ_ಠ |
| ʕ ʔ | Phonetic alphabet symbols U+0295, U+0294 | A bear’s ears ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ |
| ᴥ | Phonetic alphabet (the letter ain) U+1D25 | An animal’s snout (ᵔᴥᵔ) |
| ٩ ۶ | Arabic-Indic digits nine and six U+0669, U+06F6 | Raised arms ٩(◕‿◕)۶ |
| ლ | Georgian (the letter las) U+10DA | A hand ლ(ಠ_ಠლ) |
| ᕕ ᕗ | Canadian Aboriginal syllabics U+1555, U+1557 | Swinging arms ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ |
| ┻ ━ | Box-drawing characters U+253B, U+2501 | A table ┻━┻ |

If a kaomoji breaks where you paste it, pick a simpler one. Faces made only of keyboard characters, such as (^_^), (T_T), (o_O) and the [text faces](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?category=uwu) like uwu, work everywhere. This collection leaves out the rare scripts that most often turn into boxes.

## Kaomoji by mood, animal and action

The search looks at the category and at the tags of each kaomoji, so *sad cat* finds the crying cats and *bear hug* the hugging bear. These are the most-wanted kinds, with the number of results each search gives; tap one to open it.

| Kind | Results | For example |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [Happy and smiling](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=happy) | 67 | (^_^) (^‿^) (◕‿◕) |
| [Hearts and love](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=heart) | 93 | (♥‿♥) (♡‿♡) (｡♥‿♥｡) |
| [Cat](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=cat) | 58 | (=^･ω･^=)♡ (=^･ω･^=) (=^･^=) |
| [Crying](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=crying) | 74 | (=TェT=) (T_T) (T-T) |
| [Sad](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=sad) | 117 | (=;ω;=) (=TェT=) (T_T) |
| [Stars and sparkles](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=sparkle) | 54 | (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ ✧*｡٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و✧*｡ |
| [Bunny](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=bunny) | 26 | (・x・) (´・×・`) ／(･ × ･)＼ |
| [Blushing and shy](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=blush) | 41 | (〃▽〃) (〃ω〃) (〃∀〃) |
| [Shrug](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=shrug) | 32 | ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\(°_o)/¯ ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ |
| [Angry](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=angry) | 72 | (｀Д´) (｀皿´) (｀ε´) |
| [Flowers](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=flower) | 49 | (✿◠‿◠) (✿◕‿◕) (◕‿◕✿) |
| [Dog and puppy](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=dog) | 29 | ∪･ω･∪ ∪＾ェ＾∪ ∪･ｪ･∪ |
| [Bear](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=bear) | 38 | ʅʕ•ᴥ•ʔʃ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ |
| [Kiss](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=kiss) | 28 | (＾3＾) (´ε` ) (*´з`) |
| [Hug](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=hug) | 37 | ʕっ•ᴥ•ʔっ (づ￣ ³￣)づ (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ |
| [Sleeping](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=sleep) | 34 | ₍ᐢ-x-ᐢ₎ zzZ U-ᴥ-U zzZ -w- |
| [Waving hello](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=wave) | 50 | (・x・)ﾉ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔﾉ゛ ▽･ｪ･▽ﾉ |
| [Thumbs up](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=thumbs%20up) | 15 | (o^-')b (・ω・)b (^_^)b |
| [Table flip](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=table%20flip) | 19 | (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ (ﾉ｀Д´)ﾉ彡┻━┻ |
| [Dividers and borders](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?q=divider) | 46 | ⋆｡ﾟ☆｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ |

## Emoji combos

An **emoji combo** is a short row of emoji that go together, such as 🧸🎀🍓 or 🌙✨🪐. People use them to set a mood in a bio, a caption, a playlist title or a contact name. The second part of the tool has 374 of them: cute, aesthetic, soft and cozy, by color, for every season, and for Christmas, Halloween, birthdays and other occasions. [Show only the emoji combos](https://linguaholic.com/tools/kaomoji/?category=emoji-combos).

- **They look different on every device.** Emoji are drawn by the phone or computer that shows them, so the same combo looks a little different on an iPhone, an Android phone and a Windows PC.
- **New emoji can go missing.** An emoji that was added recently shows as a box on devices that have not been updated. The combos here only use emoji from 2021 or earlier.
- **Mix them.** A combo next to a kaomoji or a line of sparkles, like ⋆｡˚ ☁️ ˚｡⋆, makes a bio look finished. The last two themes are made for that.

## More to copy and paste

For single symbols, see the [heart](https://linguaholic.com/tools/heart-symbols/), [star](https://linguaholic.com/tools/star-symbols/), [flower](https://linguaholic.com/tools/flower-symbols/) and [moon](https://linguaholic.com/tools/moon-symbols/) palettes. For pictures made of several lines of text, try [Text Art](https://linguaholic.com/tools/text-art/) and the [ASCII Cat Generator](https://linguaholic.com/tools/ascii-cat-generator/). To write your name in 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓲𝓿𝓮 or 𝕠𝕦𝕥𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖 letters next to a kaomoji, use the [Fancy Text Generator](https://linguaholic.com/tools/fancy-text-generator/).

## Free and private

The kaomoji collection is free to use and needs no sign-up. Kaomoji are traditional expressions that people share freely, so you can use them anywhere. Nothing you search for or copy is sent to us: the list of recently copied kaomoji is kept only in your own browser, and you can empty it with **Clear**.

## Frequently asked questions

**What is a kaomoji?**

A kaomoji is a Japanese-style emoticon: a face or small figure built from text characters, such as (^_^) or (T_T). The word means “face characters”. Unlike :-), a kaomoji is upright, so you read it without tilting your head.

**How do I copy and paste a kaomoji?**

Tap the kaomoji and it is copied to your clipboard. Then paste it where you want it: press and hold and choose Paste on a phone, or press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac) on a computer.

**How do you type the shrug emoji ¯\_(ツ)_/¯?**

The quickest way is to copy it. To type it without copying, save it once as a text replacement on your phone or Mac, with a shortcut such as “shrug”. On Windows, press the Windows key and the period key and open the kaomoji tab. In Discord, type /shrug.

**Why does the shrug lose an arm on Discord and Reddit?**

Those apps use Markdown, which reads the backslash and the underscores as formatting. Put a backslash in front of each of them, like this: ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯. The “Copy for Discord and Reddit” option does that for every kaomoji you copy.

**What is the difference between kaomoji, emoticons and emoji?**

An emoticon such as :-) is a sideways face typed with keyboard characters. A kaomoji such as (^_^) is an upright face that also uses characters from other writing systems. An emoji such as 😀 is a single character that your device shows as a small picture.

**Why do some kaomoji show up as boxes or question marks?**

Kaomoji borrow characters from many writing systems. If none of the fonts on a device contains one of them, it is shown as an empty box or a question mark. Simple kaomoji made of keyboard characters, such as (^_^) or (T_T), work everywhere.

**What are emoji combos?**

Emoji combos are short rows of emoji that go together, such as 🧸🎀🍓 or 🌙✨🪐. People use them in bios, captions, usernames and playlist titles to set a mood. This page has them by theme: cute, aesthetic, colors, seasons, holidays and more.

**What is the Lenny face?**

The Lenny face, ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), is a kaomoji with raised eyebrows and a sly grin, used for mischief or a knowing joke. The collection has 21 variations of it.

**What does the table flip (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ mean?**

It shows someone throwing a table over in frustration, and it is nearly always meant as a joke. The usual reply is ┬─┬ ノ( ゜-゜ノ), which puts the table back.

**Are kaomoji free to use?**

Yes. Kaomoji are traditional expressions made of ordinary characters and are shared freely, so you can use them in messages, bios, usernames and posts without asking anyone.

## Related tools

- [ASCII Cat Generator](https://linguaholic.com/tools/ascii-cat-generator/): Build your own ASCII cat: choose a pose, a face, a hat and a speech bubble, then copy and paste it. With ready-made cats, one-line cats and dot-art cats.
- [Text Art](https://linguaholic.com/tools/text-art/): A copy-and-paste collection of text art — hearts, stars, moons, cute characters, gifts, cakes, dividers, and classic one-line emoticons — ready to paste anywhere.
- [Fancy Text Generator](https://linguaholic.com/tools/fancy-text-generator/): Type once and copy your text in 55 fancy styles, from cursive and gothic to bubble letters and small caps, for Instagram, Discord, TikTok and X names and bios.
- [Heart Symbols](https://linguaholic.com/tools/heart-symbols/): Tap to copy heart symbols and heart emoji — ♥ ❤ ♡ 💕 🖤 and dozens more — for Instagram, TikTok, bios, usernames, and messages.
- [Star Symbols](https://linguaholic.com/tools/star-symbols/): Tap to copy star symbols and star emoji — ★ ☆ ✦ ✧ ⭐ ✨ and many more — for bios, captions, ratings, usernames, and messages.
- [Invisible Character](https://linguaholic.com/tools/invisible-character/): Copy invisible characters — blank, empty Unicode text — to make blank usernames, empty messages, and spacing in Discord, Fortnite, Instagram, and more.