Right Arrow Curving Left Emoji

The right arrow curving left (↩️) is the universal undo symbol — the visual shorthand for "go back" that appears in every text editor, email client, and messaging app on Earth. It's the reply arrow, the undo arrow, and the "return to previous state" indicator. In email, ↩️ is the reply icon: Outlook shows a purple version, Gmail a gray one, but the shape is the same. In word processors, it's the undo button sitting next to its mirror ↪️ (redo). The curved shape matters — it implies you're returning to a place you've already been, not just moving left. A straight arrow ⬅️ means "go that direction." A curved arrow ↩️ means "go back to where you were." That distinction is why ↩️ survived the transition from typewriter carriages to email clients to smartphone apps without a redesign. The concept of "return" is always a curve.

↩️ appears in three main contexts. First: email and messaging, where it's the reply indicator. "↩️ replied to your story" is standard Instagram notation. Second: undo and correction — "↩️ that last text" meaning "pretend I didn't send that." Third: boomerang energy — "karma always comes back ↩️" or "what goes around ↩️." It's one of those emojis where the UI meaning (reply/undo) and the metaphorical meaning (return/karma) reinforce each other. Most people encounter ↩️ not by searching for it, but by seeing it as the reply icon in their email client — making it one of the most-seen arrow shapes in computing despite relatively low emoji-specific search volume.

The curved return arrow predates computers. Typewriters had a carriage return lever that physically moved the carriage back to the start of the line — the original "go back" action. When IBM introduced the Selectric typewriter in 1961, the return key got a curved arrow symbol (↵) showing the carriage's path: right to left, then down one line. As computers replaced typewriters, the curved arrow migrated to keyboards as the Enter/Return key symbol. The undo function itself appeared at Xerox PARC in 1974, in the Bravo text editor. Larry Tesler, who later moved to Apple, helped establish Ctrl+Z as the undo shortcut on the Apple Lisa — placing Z next to X (cut), C (copy), and V (paste) on the QWERTY keyboard. The curved arrow icon for undo emerged in the 1980s as GUIs needed visual buttons: a U-turn backward (↩️) for undo, a U-turn forward (↪️) for redo. Email clients adopted the same shape for reply (going back to the sender) and forward (continuing onward). Unicode encoded it in 1993 as U+21A9 LEFTWARDS ARROW WITH HOOK, part of the Arrows block.

Encoded in Unicode 1.1 (1993) as U+21A9 LEFTWARDS ARROW WITH HOOK. Part of the Arrows block (U+2190–U+21FF). Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. Its mirror ↪️ (U+21AA RIGHTWARDS ARROW WITH HOOK) sits right next to it in the same block.

• •The curved return arrow existed on typewriters before computers — IBM's Selectric (1961) used a curved arrow symbol on its Return key to show the carriage's path back to the start of the line.
• •Ctrl+Z for undo was established on the Apple Lisa in the early 1980s. Z was chosen partly because it sits next to X, C, and V on QWERTY keyboards — cut, copy, paste, undo all in one row.
• •Email clients use ↩️ for reply and ↪️ for forward. Outlook colors them purple and blue. Gmail grays them out. The shape hasn't changed since the 1990s.
• •↩️ is one of the most-seen arrow shapes in computing — it appears as the reply icon in every email client — but it has low emoji search volume because people see it in UI, not in emoji keyboards.