Computer Mouse Emoji

A computer mouse with two buttons and a scroll wheel. Emojipedia notes it's "generally depicted as a white or gray, cordless device" and is used for "various content concerning computers, including gaming and various senses of click." Apple's design resembles their Magic Mouse, because of course it does.

The object this emoji represents was invented by Douglas Engelbart at SRI International in the early 1960s. Bill English built the first prototype in 1964. They called it a "mouse" because the cord coming out the back looked like a tail. Engelbart patented it in 1970 as an "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System," which is somehow less catchy than "mouse."

In texting, 🖱️ appears in tech discussions, gaming content, and the occasional "I'm on desktop" clarification. It's one of the least-used emojis in Unicode. The raw emoji character registers at literally 0 on Google Trends, which means virtually nobody is searching for it. People who want to talk about computers use 💻 instead.

🖱️ barely exists in social media conversations. It's a tech-context-only emoji, used by IT professionals, gamers discussing peripherals, and the occasional tech reviewer. You'll see it in tweets about new mouse releases from Logitech or Razer, in Discord gaming channels debating DPI settings, and in tech setup photos on Reddit's r/battlestations.

The gaming mouse market is worth approximately $2 billion in 2024 and growing at ~7.5% annually, driven by esports. But none of that translates into 🖱️ emoji usage. Gamers talk about mice constantly. They just don't use the mouse emoji to do it. They type "mouse" or post photos of their actual setup.

Apple's version of the emoji looks like a Magic Mouse, which is a perpetual source of internet jokes because of the charging port on the bottom. You can't use the mouse while it charges. Apple kept this design for 9 years across two generations (Lightning, then USB-C), renewing the criticism each time.

On December 9, 1968, Douglas Engelbart stood on a stage at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco and showed 1,000 computer scientists the future. Using a small wooden box with a single button and two perpendicular wheels, he demonstrated real-time text editing, hypertext links, a graphical user interface, video conferencing, and collaborative document editing. His team at SRI beamed the demonstration 30 miles from Menlo Park via microwave link. The event became known as the "Mother of All Demos".

The first mouse prototype was built by Bill English in 1964: a wooden shell housing two perpendicular wheels that tracked X and Y movement. Engelbart filed the patent in 1967 ("X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System"), and it was granted in 1970.

Here's the tragic part: the patent expired before the mouse went mainstream. When Apple licensed it from SRI to include with the 1984 Macintosh, they paid approximately $40,000. Engelbart never received significant royalties from the device that changed how every human interacts with computers. He died in 2013 at age 88.

The emoji version arrived in Unicode 7.0 (June 2014) as U+1F5B1U+1F5B1 THREE BUTTON MOUSE (later renamed Computer Mouse) and was added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015.

1. 1964Bill English builds the first mouse prototype at SRI International: a wooden shell with two wheels↗
2. 1968Douglas Engelbart demonstrates the mouse at the 'Mother of All Demos' on December 9↗
3. 1970Engelbart's mouse patent (US 3,541,541) is granted
4. 1981Xerox sells the first commercial mouse with the 8010 Star Information System
5. 1984Apple includes a mouse with the Macintosh, licensing Engelbart's patent for ~$40,000↗
6. 2014🖱️ approved in Unicode 7.0 as U+1F5B1 THREE BUTTON MOUSE↗

• •Gaming mice now hit 8000Hz polling rates in 2025, eight times faster than the 1000Hz standard that dominated for two decades. At 8000Hz the mouse reports its position every 0.125ms, which is faster than any monitor can refresh.
• •Ultralight gaming mice crossed the 50-gram barrier around 2020, and models like the Finalmouse Starlight-12 reached 41g. For comparison, the original 1968 Engelbart mouse was a wooden block.
• •Douglas Engelbart's 1968 "Mother of All Demos" showcased the mouse, GUI, hypertext, video conferencing, and real-time collaboration, all concepts that took 15-25 years to reach mainstream consumers.
• •The first mouse prototype (1964) was a wooden box with two perpendicular wheels. It was called a "mouse" because the cord looked like a tail.
• •Apple licensed Engelbart's patent for approximately $40,000. The patent expired before the PC revolution, so Engelbart never profited significantly from his invention.
• •The gaming mouse market was worth approximately $2 billion in 2024 and is growing at 7.5% annually, entirely driven by esports demand. The mouse is thriving, it just moved from offices to gaming desks.
• •Apple's Magic Mouse has its charging port on the bottom, making it unusable while charging. Apple kept this design for 9 years across two generations and two different connector types.
• •The emoji's original Unicode name was "Three Button Mouse," later simplified to "Computer Mouse." The original name is more accurate since the emoji clearly shows three elements (left button, right button, scroll wheel).

• •The "Mother of All Demos" on December 9, 1968, where Douglas Engelbart demonstrated the mouse, GUI, hypertext, video conferencing, and real-time collaboration to 1,000 people in San Francisco. Everything shown that day became the foundation of modern computing, but it took 15-25 years for each feature to reach consumers.
• •Apple's Magic Mouse charging port placement on the bottom of the device became one of the most-mocked tech design decisions in history. When Apple refreshed it in 2024 with USB-C (still on the bottom), the internet collectively sighed. Nine years, two connector types, same bad placement.
• •The 2010 "mouse is dead" discourse following the iPad's launch predicted touchscreens would replace all pointing devices. Fifteen years later, the gaming mouse market alone is worth $2 billion and growing. The mouse outlasted the predictions and the writers who made them.

• •🖱️ is U+1F5B1U+1F5B1 (COMPUTER MOUSE) + U+FE0FU+FE0F (variation selector). Original name: THREE BUTTON MOUSE.
• •Discord: :computer_mouse::computer_mouse:. Slack: :computer_mouse::computer_mouse:. GitHub: :computer_mouse::computer_mouse:.
• •The related trackball emoji is 🖲️ (U+1F5B2U+1F5B2). Both were added in Unicode 7.0 (2014).

See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.