Angel Symbols

Angels in Unicode are emoji

If you search Unicode for an angel, the answer is short. There are emoji, and no text characters. 👼 is BABY ANGEL (U+1F47C), a cherub-style figure. 😇 is SMILING FACE WITH HALO (U+1F607), the face with a golden ring above it. 🪽 is WING (U+1FABD), added in 2022 with Unicode 15 and Emoji 15. There is also 🕊 (DOVE OF PEACE), often grouped with angels in tributes, and ✨ and 🌟 for glow.

Because of that, “angel symbols” on the web are mostly a mix of those emoji and small decorations from other blocks. The decorations create a soft, airy look. The groups on this page reflect that: the emoji first, then the small marks, then the cross-like symbols that people use in faith and memorial contexts, and finally strings that combine them.

How the soft look is made

The “angelic” aesthetic in names and bios relies on a recognisable set of small marks. ☁ (CLOUD) suggests heaven. ♡ (WHITE HEART SUIT) adds warmth. ✧ (WHITE FOUR POINTED STAR) and ⋆ (STAR OPERATOR) give a faint sparkle, and ˚ (RING ABOVE) is a small circle that reads like a halo or a dot of light. ❀ ✿ ❁ are florets, which bring in a softness that is more about spring than faith.

These marks are plain text characters, apart from ☁, which can be an emoji on phones. Because they are small and light they take the colour of the surrounding text, so a pale name on a dark background and a dark name on a light one both work. The soft look is also quite typographic: wide spacing helps. Placing a space on either side of each mark, as in ⋆ ˚ ♡ ˚ ⋆, makes them look deliberate and stops them from being merged into a block.

If you want a different mood, the sparkle symbols page covers the many shapes in the star and glitter family, and the butterfly symbols page covers another popular soft motif.

Cross-like marks

The third group is for faith-related and memorial use. ✝ (LATIN CROSS), ✞ (SHADOWED WHITE LATIN CROSS), ✟ (OUTLINED LATIN CROSS), ☩ (CROSS OF JERUSALEM), ♰ (WEST SYRIAC CROSS) and ♱ (EAST SYRIAC CROSS) are old religious and typographic symbols. † (DAGGER) is a typographic mark, used for footnotes and in some contexts to mark someone as deceased, which is why it is sometimes used in memorials.

Be considerate with these. A cross can be the right mark for a tribute to a Christian person and wrong for a general audience. If you are not sure, a dove, a star or a simple word is more neutral. The cross symbols page lists the larger set and notes about each.

Angel and halo emoji across platforms

The three angel emoji appear differently on every platform. 😇 shows a yellow face with a halo, but the face shape, halo style and smile all differ. 👼 in some designs is a baby with a halo and wings, and in others a smaller figure. 🪽 draws a single wing, and some platforms show it as white, others as grey. Pick the emoji by its name and do not rely on its exact appearance, because the person who sees your post may see a different version.

Memorial and tribute use

Angel symbols are widely used for remembrance, such as “gone too soon” posts. There is no rule about which symbol is appropriate, and customs vary. Short is better. One dove or one halo face reads as a calm gesture, while a long chain of mixed symbols can look like decoration. If your post will be read by people who use screen readers, the simplest option is to put the words first, and add a symbol afterwards.

Typing angel symbols

1. Windows emoji panel. Press the Windows key and period, then search angel, halo or wing.
2. Word. Type 271D and press Alt then X for ✝. Use 2671 for ♱, 2670 for ♰ and 2629 for ☩.
3. Mac. The Character Viewer from Control, Command and Space finds the emoji and the crosses.
4. iPhone and Android. Search the emoji keyboard for angel to find 😇 and 👼. 🪽 depends on an up-to-date system.
5. Text replacement. On iOS and macOS, set “angl” to expand to 😇 or ✧ ♱ ✧.

There are no classic Alt codes for these characters, since they were added to Unicode after the old Windows code pages were designed.

Accessibility

Screen readers announce angel emoji by their standard names, for example “baby angel”, and the text marks by the Unicode name, such as “white four pointed star”. A decorative string of six marks is six announcements. For people who rely on audio, use one or two, and place them after the words. The fancy text accessibility guide explains the details.

If you see a box

Older systems may not have 🪽 or some of the cross-like characters, in which case a box appears. The boxes guide covers how to deal with this. A good companion to this page is the heart symbols page.