Green Apple Emoji

A bright green apple, the Granny Smith variety on most platforms. 🍏 is the quieter sibling of 🍎, and that dynamic defines its entire identity. Google search data tells the story: 🍎 consistently gets 2-3x the search volume of 🍏. But when people search by name ("green apple emoji" vs "red apple emoji"), they're nearly equal. More people are curious about the green apple than actually use it.

🍏 carries a surprising number of associations: health and wellness (an apple a day), education (the teacher's apple), tech (Apple Inc.), surrealist art (Magritte's The Son of Man), rock history (the Beatles' Apple Records Granny Smith label), and since 2024, a streaming meme (IShowSpeed's "green apples" sign-off code).

Approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010) as U+1F34FU+1F34F GREEN APPLE. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015.

🍏 plays second fiddle to 🍎 in most contexts, but it has a few lanes where it's the preferred choice.

Health and wellness. The "an apple a day" crowd uses both apples, but 🍏 has a stronger association with clean eating, green juice, and fitness content. Green = healthy is a deep color association.

Snapchat relationship status. On Snapchat, 🍏 is an informal code for "engaged". Part of a broader fruit emoji system: 🍒 = in a relationship, 🍋 = single, 🍍 = complicated, 🍌 = married. It's not officially supported by Snapchat but widely used.

Apple Inc. When people want to reference the tech company but don't have the private-use Apple logo (), 🍏 is the go-to stand-in. The green color matches Apple's environmental branding.

IShowSpeed's code word. Since mid-2024, "green apples" became IShowSpeed's secret phrase to tell his cameraperson to end his IRL streams. It went viral on TikTok with compilation videos getting millions of views. Fans now drop 🍏 in his chat as a running joke.

The green apple on your screen is almost certainly a Granny Smith, and the Granny Smith has one of the best origin stories in fruit history.

In 1868, Maria Ann Smith, a grandmother in Eastwood, New South Wales, Australia, discovered a chance seedling growing near a creek where she'd dumped the remains of French crab apples from Tasmania. She cultivated it, shared it with neighbors, and died two years later in 1870 without knowing what she'd created. The apple was eventually named after her: "Granny" Smith's apple. It took decades to spread. The first published account of its origin wasn't until 1924, when a local historian interviewed two men who had known her.

The green apple also has deep roots in art. René Magritte's The Son of Man (1964), a man in a bowler hat with a green apple floating in front of his face, became one of the most iconic images of surrealism. Magritte said: "Everything we see hides another thing." Paul McCartney, a Magritte collector, was inspired by another Magritte apple painting (Le Jeu De Mourre) when the Beatles created Apple Records in 1968. The label featured a shiny Granny Smith on the A-side and its cross-section on the B-side.

Then there's the science connection. Newton's famous apple was from a Flower of Kent tree, a cooking variety that produces green apples. That tree is still alive at Woolsthorpe Manor, over 350 years old.

1. 1666Newton observes an apple fall from a Flower of Kent tree (a green cooking apple) at Woolsthorpe Manor. The tree still stands today, over 350 years old.↗
2. 1868Maria Ann Smith discovers a chance seedling in Eastwood, NSW, Australia. The Granny Smith apple is born. She dies two years later without knowing her legacy.↗
3. 1964René Magritte paints The Son of Man: a man in a bowler hat with a green apple hovering in front of his face. It becomes the most iconic surrealist image.↗
4. 1968The Beatles launch Apple Records with a Granny Smith apple on the label, inspired by Paul McCartney's Magritte collection.↗
5. 2010Approved in Unicode 6.0 as U+1F34F GREEN APPLE alongside 🍎 RED APPLE (U+1F34E).
6. 2024IShowSpeed's "green apples" code word for ending streams goes viral on TikTok with compilation videos getting millions of views.↗

• •The Granny Smith apple was discovered by accident in 1868 when Maria Ann Smith found a seedling growing from dumped crab apple remains near a creek in Australia. She died two years later. The first published account of the origin wasn't until 1924.
• •Magritte's The Son of Man (1964), the man with a green apple over his face, is one of the most reproduced images in art history. Magritte painted it as a self-portrait.
• •The Beatles chose a Granny Smith apple for their Apple Records label because Paul McCartney was inspired by Magritte's apple paintings. The A-side showed the whole apple; the B-side showed the cross-section.
• •Newton's famous apple tree was a Flower of Kent variety, which produces green cooking apples, not red eating apples. The tree was blown down in a storm in 1816 but re-rooted and is still alive, over 350 years old.
• •The apple-for-the-teacher tradition started in 16th-18th century Scandinavia where families gave teachers food to supplement their poor wages. Apples were practical: easy to grow and storable through winter.
• •On Snapchat, 🍏 is an informal code for "engaged". Part of a fruit relationship status system that's not officially supported but widely used among Gen Z users.
• •IShowSpeed's "green apples" code word for ending streams went viral in mid-2024, with TikTok compilations getting over 3 million views.
• •The Bible never specifies the forbidden fruit. The apple association is a Latin pun: malum means both "apple" and "evil." Medieval French artists started painting it as an apple in the 12th century.
• •The Beatles' Apple Records label was designed by Gene Mahon and photographer Paul Castell. Castell shot apples in every color against every background. The green Granny Smith on black won, partly because Paul McCartney had just been gifted a Magritte painting of a green apple.
• •In Magritte's The Son of Man, the man in the bowler hat is Magritte himself. The green apple obscures his face because "everything we see hides another thing." The painting was featured in the 1999 Thomas Crown Affair and has been parodied endlessly.
• •IShowSpeed fans bring physical green apples to his IRL streams in an attempt to "force" the stream to end. It doesn't actually work, but the trolling is the point.

• •Magritte's The Son of Man (1964): A self-portrait with a green apple obscuring the face. One of the most reproduced surrealist images, starring in The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). Details.
• •Apple Records (1968): The Beatles' label uses a Granny Smith apple on every A-side and a sliced cross-section on every B-side. Paul McCartney's Magritte collection inspired the design. Details.
• •IShowSpeed's "green apples" (2024): Speed's secret code to end IRL streams became a TikTok meme in weeks. The Know Your Meme entry tracks its spread.
• •Snapchat fruit emoji code: The unofficial Gen Z relationship signal system: 🍏 engaged, 🍒 taken, 🍋 single, 🍍 complicated, 🍌 married.
• •Newton's apple tree (c.1666): A Flower of Kent (green cooking apple) tree at Woolsthorpe Manor. Still alive today, over 350 years old, and scions have been grafted to Cambridge, Trinity College Dublin, MIT, and the International Space Station.
• •Granny Smith origin (1868): Maria Ann Smith of Eastwood, NSW, Australia discovered the seedling and died without knowing what she'd created. Australia Post put her on a stamp in 2013.