Down Arrow Symbol (↓): How to Type, Copy, and Use It
The down arrow ↓ means down, but it carries more than one job. The plain arrow is ↓, the emoji is ⬇️, and its cousins — ▼, ⇓, ⇩ — each mean something specific, from a dropdown menu to a download. It shows up as a direction, a decrease, a UI control, and a science shorthand. Here is how to type ↓, where to copy every version, and which one you actually want.
In a hurry?
- Copy it: click ↓ or ⬇️ in the grid below.
- Windows: hold Alt and type 25 on the numeric keypad → ↓.
- Mac: open the Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space) and search “down arrow”.
- Phone: copy it from the grid, or pick ⬇️ from the emoji keyboard.
- In HTML ↓ is
↓; in a URL it is%E2%86%93.
Table of Contents
The plain ↓ and the emoji ⬇️ are different characters — the emoji shows in color on phones, the plain one takes your text color. The variants section below sorts out ▼, ⇓, and the rest.
Down arrow symbol: every code in one table
The plain downwards arrow, with every code you are likely to need. Copy from the grid above, or use whichever method fits the app you are in.
| Property | Down arrow |
| Character | ↓ |
| Name | Downwards Arrow |
| Unicode | U+2193 |
| Windows Alt code | Alt + 25 |
| Word (type + Alt+X) | 2193 |
| Mac | Character Viewer |
| HTML named | ↓ |
| HTML numeric | ↓ |
| URL / percent | %E2%86%93 |
Detail most guides skip: on Windows, Alt + 25 types ↓ straight from the numeric keypad, because the arrow lives in the old code page. Its neighbors work too — Alt + 24 gives ↑, Alt + 26 gives →, Alt + 27 gives ←.
How to type the down arrow on any device
On Windows
Hold Alt and type 25 on the numeric keypad, then release — you get ↓. Num Lock has to be on, and the digits must come from the keypad, not the top row. For the color emoji ⬇️, press Windows + . and search “down”. No keypad? Copy it from the grid or use Character Map.
On Mac
Open the Character Viewer with Control + Command + Space, search “down arrow”, and double-click ↓. The same picker holds the emoji ⬇️ under the arrows or by searching “down”. There is no single dead-key shortcut for the plain arrow, so the picker or a copy is quickest.
On iPhone and Android
The color emoji is the easy one: open the emoji keyboard, search “down”, and tap ⬇️. For the plain text ↓, copy it from the grid above — phone keyboards do not have a key for it.
In Microsoft Word
Type 2193 and press Alt + X, and Word turns it into ↓. You can also use Insert → Symbol and pick from the Arrows subset. The Windows Alt + 25 code works here too.
On Linux
Press Ctrl + Shift + U, type 2193, then Enter for ↓. Most emoji pickers (for example Super + . in GNOME) also carry the arrow and its emoji form.
In Excel and Google Sheets
Use the formula =UNICHAR(8595) to return ↓ in a cell. Alt + 25 works in Excel on Windows too. Both apps also have conditional-formatting icon sets that drop red and green up and down arrows next to your numbers automatically — handy for dashboards showing gains and drops.
In HTML and CSS
In HTML, the named entity is ↓ (also ↓) and the numeric is ↓. In a CSS content value, use \2193. Serve the page as UTF-8; arrows are not in older encodings, so the charset has to be right for them to show at all.
What does the down arrow mean?
On its own, ↓ means down: a direction, a drop, “see below.” But it is also the download icon, the dropdown caret, a logic operator, a physics label, and a market signal, with a few look-alike arrows that each carry their own meaning. Here is how to tell them apart and where each one belongs.
Which down arrow? ↓ vs ⬇️ vs ▼ vs ⇓
They all point down, but they are different characters with different jobs. Pick the one that matches what you mean.
| Symbol | Name | Unicode | Where it fits |
| ↓ | Downwards arrow | U+2193 | direction, decrease, science |
| ⬇️ | Down arrow emoji | U+2B07 | chats, social, phones |
| ▼ | Black down triangle | U+25BC | dropdowns, “show more”, price down |
| ▽ | White down triangle | U+25BD | outline version |
| ⇓ | Downwards double arrow | U+21D3 | implied by, strong down |
| ⇩ | Downwards white arrow | U+21E9 | download-style key |
| ↧ | Down arrow from bar | U+21A7 | “to the bottom” |
| ⌄ | Down arrowhead | U+2304 | collapse caret |
The download and dropdown arrows: ⬇️ and ▼
Two down arrows do most of the work on screens. The ⬇️ arrow, often drawn pointing into a tray or line, is the universal download icon — click it and something saves to your device. The small ▼ triangle is the dropdown caret: it sits at the end of a menu or select box to say “there is more below, click to open.” If you are building an interface, ▼ (or the thinner caret ⌄) is the one people read as “expand,” while ⬇️ reads as “save this.”
Down arrow in chemistry: the precipitate arrow ↓
In a chemical equation, a down arrow after a product means a precipitate — a solid that forms and settles out of the solution. It is the mirror of the up arrow, which marks a gas escaping. So AgNO₃ + NaCl reactions are written with AgCl↓ to show the silver chloride dropping out as a solid. One glance at the arrow tells a chemist what state the product leaves in.
Down arrow in logic and math: the Peirce arrow (NOR)
In logic, ↓ is the Peirce arrow, the symbol for NOR — “neither A nor B.” Charles Sanders Peirce showed that this one operator is enough to build every other logical connective, which is why NOR gates matter in circuit design. In analysis, a down arrow means something different again: x ↓ 0 reads as “x decreases to 0 from above,” describing a limit approached from the top.
Down arrow in physics: spin down ↓
In quantum mechanics, ↓ marks spin down and ↑ marks spin up — the two spin states of an electron, written |↓⟩ and |↑⟩. Chemists use the same ↑↓ pair to fill orbital diagrams, one arrow per electron. A downward arrow in that context is not a direction on the page; it is a physical property of the particle.
Down arrow in data, finance, and biology
↓ and ▼ are the everyday signs for “down”: a stock sliding, a metric falling, a rating dropping, usually drawn in red. In biology, ↓ is shorthand for downregulation — a gene or protein decreasing — set against ↑ for upregulation. In chats and documents, a down arrow often just means “see the thing below this.”
↓ vs ⬇️: the plain arrow and the emoji
These two get mixed up. The plain ↓ (U+2193) is a text character that takes your font’s color, so it stays black in a document and lines up with your text. The emoji ⬇️ is a different character (U+2B07) followed by a hidden variation selector that tells the device to draw it in color. On a phone they look clearly different; in raw code they can look identical. Use ↓ for documents, math, and code, and ⬇️ for chats and social posts.
Down arrow in URLs and encoding
In a link, ↓ is percent-encoded as %E2%86%93 — three UTF-8 bytes, because the arrow sits high in Unicode. If ↓ shows up as ↓ or a box, the bytes are being read as an older encoding. Arrows are not part of Latin-1 at all, so a page stuck on an old charset cannot display them; set the file, database, and page to UTF-8 and the arrow returns.
Copy-paste HTML codes
The main down arrows with their web codes, in one place. Copy the code you need.
| Symbol | Named entity | Numeric entity | URL (percent) code |
| ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | %E2%86%93 |
| ⬇ | (none) | ⬇ | %E2%AC%87 |
| ▼ | (none) | ▼ | %E2%96%BC |
| ⇩ | (none) | ⇩ | %E2%87%A9 |
| ⇓ | ⇓ | ⇓ | %E2%87%93 |
In a CSS content value, use \2193 for ↓. For the up arrow, other directions, and every other character, see the copy and paste symbols tool and the keyboard shortcuts guide.
Troubleshooting
My ↓ shows as ↓ or a box
That is an encoding mismatch — the UTF-8 bytes for the arrow are being read as an older encoding, and arrows are not in Latin-1 at all. Set the file, database, and page charset to UTF-8 and ↓ displays correctly.
Alt + 25 does nothing
Num Lock is off, you are using the top-row numbers, or your laptop has no numeric keypad. Turn Num Lock on and use the keypad. Some apps also intercept Alt + 25; if so, type 2193 then Alt + X in Word, or copy the arrow from the grid above.
I get a colored arrow when I wanted a plain one
You copied the emoji ⬇️ instead of the plain ↓. Grab ↓ (U+2193) from the grid, or in code add the text variation selector (U+FE0E) after an emoji to force the flat black form.
Frequently asked questions
How do I type the down arrow ↓?
On Windows, hold Alt and type 25 on the numeric keypad. In Word, type 2193 then Alt + X. On a Mac, open the Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space) and search “down arrow”. Or copy it from the grid above.
What does the down arrow symbol mean?
It depends on context: a direction or a decrease, the download icon (⬇️) or a dropdown caret (▼), a precipitate in chemistry, the NOR operator (the Peirce arrow) in logic, spin down (↓) in physics, or a falling value in finance and biology.
What is the ▼ symbol?
▼ (U+25BC) is the black down-pointing triangle, used as the dropdown caret in menus and select boxes to show there is more to open. The outline version is ▽ (U+25BD).
What is the difference between ↓ and ⬇️?
↓ (U+2193) is a plain text arrow that takes your font color; ⬇️ is the color emoji (U+2B07 plus a variation selector). Use the plain one for documents and the emoji for chats.
How do I write ↓ in HTML?
Use the named entity ↓ or the numeric ↓. In a CSS content value it is \2193, and in a URL it is %E2%86%93.
