Leftwards White Arrow
About this character
The character ⇦ carries the official Unicode name “Leftwards White Arrow” and the code point U+21E6, which is 8678 in decimal. It belongs to the Arrows block (U+2190–U+21FF), which gathers single, double and curved arrows used in typography, mathematics and user interfaces.
In memory, ⇦ takes 3 bytes in UTF-8 (0xE2 0x87 0xA6) and 1 in UTF-16 (0x21E6). That difference is why badly configured forms or databases garble this character: they assume one byte per character.
How to type ⇦
| System | What to do |
|---|---|
| Windows | In Word or WordPad, type 21E6 and press Alt + X to turn the code into the character. |
| macOS | On a Mac, open the Character Viewer with Ctrl + ⌘ + Space and search for “Leftwards White Arrow”. |
| Linux | On Linux (GTK), type Ctrl + ⇧ + U, 21E6 then press Enter. |
| HTML / Web | In an HTML page, write ⇦. Use \21E6 in CSS, \u21E6 in JavaScript and \u21E6 in Python. |
| On this site | The simplest route is the Copy button above: the character goes straight to your clipboard, ready to paste anywhere. |
Keyboards that include ⇦
This character is not on any common physical layout, so the Copy button above is the quickest way to get it into a document.
Codes and encodings
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+21E6 |
| Unicode block | Arrows (U+2190–U+21FF) |
| Decimal | 8678 |
| Hexadecimal | 0x21E6 |
| Octal | 020746 |
| Binary | 10000111100110 |
| UTF-8 bytes | 0xE2 0x87 0xA6 |
| UTF-16 units | 0x21E6 |
| Named HTML entity | None |
| Decimal HTML entity | ⇦ |
| Hex HTML entity | ⇦ |
| CSS escape | \21E6 |
| JavaScript escape | \u21E6 |
| Python escape | \u21E6 |
| URL encoding | %E2%87%A6 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the Unicode code for ⇦?
Its code point is U+21E6, which is 8678 in decimal and 020746 in octal. In HTML you can write it as ⇦ or ⇦.
Why does ⇦ show up as a box or a question mark?
An empty box means the font has no glyph for U+21E6. The character is still in the text: switching to a font that covers the block (Noto, DejaVu or Segoe UI Symbol) makes it appear.
Can I use ⇦ in a filename, a URL or a password?
In a URL it must be encoded as %E2%87%A6. Modern filesystems accept it, though it is still risky when moving files between systems. For passwords, some forms reject non-ASCII characters outright.