The telephone receiver is the OG call symbol—pure ring-ring energy bottled into a single curved handset. It’s what you drop when you actually want someone to call (not send a 47-bubble text saga), to demand a callback, or to announce the phone lines are open like you’re hosting late-night radio. It doubles as a dramatic punctuation mark—end a message with 📞 and suddenly it’s “we need to talk” o’clock. Nostalgia hits too: think dial tones, busy signals, and your grandma’s wall phone that could survive a meteor strike.
Online, it swings from earnest to ironic. People use it flirtatiously with a breezy “call me maybe,” meme it with Hotline Bling references, or deploy it sarcastically—“Spam Likely is calling and I’m not home.” It can signal anxiety (“my problems are calling”), grown-up business vibes, or a classy way to say “let’s take this offline.” Stack it with 🤙 for surfer-chill “hit my line,” or with ⏰ for a dramatic wake-up call moment.
On Apple/iOS, it’s a glossy, bright green plastic handset with silvery perforated speaker/mic caps, shaded like a tiny 3D prop. The receiver tilts diagonally from bottom-left to top-right, echoing the green Phone app aesthetic—instantly recognizable even at thumbnail size. Other platforms may go blue, gray, or black, but the vintage landline silhouette keeps the meaning loud and clear.
It’s perfect for posting hotline numbers, scheduling calls, or humorously announcing you’re ignoring everyone. Basically, if conversation has a soundtrack, this emoji is the opening ring.
Definition
The receiver of a telephone. Prior to mobile phones, pay phones and home phones included a large hand-held receiver. The receiver included a speaker on one end and a microphone on the other. The portion with the speaker would be held to the ear while the microphone side would be held close to the mouth. While the classic telephone receiver is rare, its shape will be recognized for years beyond its useful life, primarily because it is used as a label or icon in smart phones and other graphical displays.
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Emoji History The emoji code/ image log of changes.
This emoji first appeared in OSX / iOS after the iOS 5 update.
Emoji General Information
Twitter Emoji Popularity (Rank)
352 of 2393
Apple/iOS Picture
Google Android Picture
Google Hangouts Picture
Twitter.com Picture
LG Emoji Picture
Samsung Emoji Picture
Phantom Open Emoji Picture
Not created yet
ASCII Conversion
"Short Code" Name
:telephone_receiver:
Keywords
Unicode Category Information
Unicode Category
Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs
Unicode Range
1F300–1F5FF
Unicode Subcategory
Communication Symbols
Proposed Unicode Information & Notes
Unicode Category
Artifacts
Unicode Subcategory
Communication Symbols
Names & Annotations
TELEPHONE RECEIVER
Symbol Information
U+1F4DE proposed
Proposal Identifier
e-524
Character Mapping/Crosswalk Notes
DoCoMo
#74 'Phone' 電話 U+E687 SJIS-F8E8 JIS-7835
KDDI
#155 電話２ U+E51E SJIS-F6F7 JIS-7679
Softbank
#245 #old9 固定電話 U+E009 SJIS-F949
Emoji Character Encoding Data
Emoji Code Version
iOS 5 - Current
UTF-8 Unicode Character(s)
📞
UTF-8 Character Count
1
Character(s) In Input
AppleColorEmoji Font (available in OSX/iOS)
📞
Decimal HTML Entity
📞
Hexadecimal HTML Entity
📞
Hex Code Point(s)
1f4de
Formal Unicode Notation
U+1F4DE
Decimal Code Point(s)
128222
UTF-8 Hex (C Syntax)
0xF0 0x9F 0x93 0x9E
UTF-8 Hex Bytes
F0 9F 93 9E
UTF-8 Octal Bytes
360 237 223 236
UTF-16 Hex (C Syntax)
0xD83D 0xDCDE
UTF-16 Hex
d83ddcde
UTF-16 Dec
55357 56542
UTF-32 Hex (C Syntax)
0x0001F4DE
UTF-32 Hex
01F4DE
UTF-32 Dec
128222
Python Src
u"\U0001F4DE"
PHP Src
"\xf0\x9f\x93\x9e"
C/C++/Java Src
"\uD83D\uDCDE"
Emoji Character Encoding Data (equivalent or similiar)
