Symbols & emoji
Kaomoji: Japanese Emoticons to Copy and Paste
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.
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1,445 kaomoji and 374 emoji combos. Tap one to copy it.
Jump to emoji combos ↓The classics
30 of the best-known kaomoji. Tap one to copy it.
Kaomoji by category
1,445 kaomoji in 45 categories. Open a category, then tap a kaomoji to copy it.
Happy58
Love & hearts61
Cat53
Crying61
Sad42
Shrug32
Blushing & shy41
Sparkles & stars36
Bunny26
Bear35
Dog28
More animals35
Angry52
Table flip19
Excited44
Laughing27
Kiss28
Hug35
Wink & playful30
Cool & smug29
Lenny faces21
Text faces (uwu)28
Surprised47
Nervous & scared42
Confused27
Unimpressed29
Sleepy & tired29
Sick & dizzy19
Hello & goodbye42
Thanks & sorry30
Thumbs up & peace23
Determined20
Dancing & music40
Running14
Peeking11
Food & drink22
Flowers21
Angels & wings13
Friends10
Writing9
Pointing15
Holidays14
Weather10
Dividers & decor46
Symbols91
Emoji combos
374 aesthetic emoji combinations in 28 themes. Tap a combo to copy it.
Cute16
Aesthetic15
Soft & cozy12
Pink & coquette16
By color31
Hearts & love14
Night sky13
Nature & flowers16
Ocean & beach13
Summer11
Fall11
Winter9
Spring9
Christmas10
Halloween9
Celebrations16
Food & coffee16
Music9
Books & hobbies15
Travel11
Y2K & vintage10
Dark & goth9
Fairy & whimsy12
Funny & silly15
Moods12
Animals15
For bios14
Kaomoji + emoji15
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.
- Type what you are after in the search box, such as cat, crying or sparkles, or pick a category from the menu.
- Tap a kaomoji. It is copied at once, and the button says “Copied”.
- 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.
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 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 | 67 | (^_^) (^‿^) (◕‿◕) |
| Hearts and love | 93 | (♥‿♥) (♡‿♡) (｡♥‿♥｡) |
| Cat | 58 | (=^･ω･^=)♡ (=^･ω･^=) (=^･^=) |
| Crying | 74 | (=TェT=) (T_T) (T-T) |
| Sad | 117 | (=;ω;=) (=TェT=) (T_T) |
| Stars and sparkles | 54 | (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ ✧*｡٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و✧*｡ |
| Bunny | 26 | (・x・) (´・×・`) ／(･ × ･)＼ |
| Blushing and shy | 41 | (〃▽〃) (〃ω〃) (〃∀〃) |
| Shrug | 32 | ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\(°_o)/¯ ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ |
| Angry | 72 | (｀Д´) (｀皿´) (｀ε´) |
| Flowers | 49 | (✿◠‿◠) (✿◕‿◕) (◕‿◕✿) |
| Dog and puppy | 29 | ∪･ω･∪ ∪＾ェ＾∪ ∪･ｪ･∪ |
| Bear | 38 | ʅʕ•ᴥ•ʔʃ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ |
| Kiss | 28 | (＾3＾) (´ε` ) (*´з`) |
| Hug | 37 | ʕっ•ᴥ•ʔっ (づ￣ ³￣)づ (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ |
| Sleeping | 34 | ₍ᐢ-x-ᐢ₎ zzZ U-ᴥ-U zzZ -w- |
| Waving hello | 50 | (・x・)ﾉ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔﾉ゛ ▽･ｪ･▽ﾉ |
| Thumbs up | 15 | (o^-')b (・ω・)b (^_^)b |
| Table flip | 19 | (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ (ﾉ｀Д´)ﾉ彡┻━┻ |
| Dividers and borders | 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.
- 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, star, flower and moon palettes. For pictures made of several lines of text, try Text Art and the ASCII Cat Generator. To write your name in 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓲𝓿𝓮 or 𝕠𝕦𝕥𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖 letters next to a kaomoji, use the 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.
About this page
The Kaomoji is a free tool from Linguaholic, made by Marcel Iseli. It runs in your browser, with no sign-up. Last updated .
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