How to type Hourglass
To type Hourglass (⌛), press Alt + 8987 on Windows, holding Alt while typing the digits on the numeric keypad, or write ⌛ in HTML. On any system you can copy it from this page, or enter its codepoint U+231B directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 231b on Linux, or 231b then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Hourglass
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+231B
- Windows
- Alt + 8987 needs regedit
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 8987 | Above 255, so Windows will not accept it as typed. Copy the character instead. |
| Mac | N/A | Press the keys together. |
| HTML | ⌛ | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+231B | HOURGLASS |
Symbols related to Hourglass
These are filed under time and done in CLDR, the keyword list Unicode publishes alongside the names.
Other symbols
⌛ lives in the Miscellaneous Technical block (U+2300-U+23FF), technical and interface characters, including the command key symbol. Within Unicode it is classified as So, a symbol.
What Hourglass is used for
Unicode publishes a second list of names for ⌛ in CLDR, the keywords its own search data offers rather than the formal name, and they are hourglass done, sand, time and timer. Those words are what somebody looking for this character is liable to type when Hourglass is not the name they know it by, and the search on the symbol lists matches them as well as the Unicode name.
What Unicode says about Hourglass
The standard recognises ⌛ under another name as well: alchemical symbol for hour. That is a formal alias, not a nickname, which is why it turns up in other people's documentation for the same codepoint.
How Hourglass behaves in software
⌛ takes two columns in a terminal, the same as a CJK character, so a table padded with spaces to a fixed width will not line up unless whatever is drawing it counts display width rather than characters. It carries no direction of its own, so in a line that mixes English with Arabic or Hebrew it takes the direction of the text around it rather than forcing one.
Every way to write Hourglass
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+231B |
| Decimal | 8987 |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 8C 9B |
| UTF-16 bytes | 23 1B |
| HTML entity | ⌛ |
| HTML numeric | ⌛ or ⌛ |
| CSS | \231B |
| JavaScript | \u231B |
| Python | \u231B |
| URL-encoded | %E2%8C%9B |
| SVG | 231B.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If ⌛ looks different on someone else's screen
⌛ is drawn by the colour emoji font on the reader's own device and not by anything this site ships, so it is a different picture on Android, on Windows and on an iPhone, and a printed document usually renders it flat and black. Where you need the flat form deliberately, follow it with the variation selector U+FE0E; U+FE0F asks for the colour one. Neither selector changes what the text says, and both survive copy and paste.