How to type Lightning Bolt
To type Lightning Bolt (⚡), press Alt + 9889 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+26A1 directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 26a1 on Linux, or 26a1 then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
High Voltage Sign
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+26A1
- Windows
- Alt + 9889 needs regedit
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 9889 | 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+26A1 | HIGH VOLTAGE SIGN |
Other symbols
⚡ lives in the Miscellaneous Symbols block (U+2600-U+26FF), weather, astrology, religion, games and a wide miscellany. Within Unicode it is classified as So, a symbol.
What Lightning Bolt 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 high voltage, danger, electric and electricity. Those words are what somebody looking for this character is liable to type when Lightning Bolt 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 Lightning Bolt
The standard recognises ⚡ under other names as well: thunder, lightning symbol. Those are a formal alias, not a nickname, which is why they turn up in other people's documentation for the same codepoint.
The code chart points from ⚡ to lightning mood (U+1F5F2). These are the characters the standard thinks you might have meant instead, which makes them the ones worth checking when Lightning Bolt looks nearly right but not quite.
How Lightning Bolt 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.
What people ask about Lightning Bolt
What does it mean when you have high alanine aminotransferase?
⚡ is HIGH VOLTAGE SIGN, encoded at U+26A1. It is distinct from lightning mood (U+1F5F2), which the chart lists beside it precisely because they are confused for one another.
Every way to write Lightning Bolt
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+26A1 |
| Decimal | 9889 |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 9A A1 |
| UTF-16 bytes | 26 A1 |
| HTML entity | ⚡ |
| HTML numeric | ⚡ or ⚡ |
| CSS | \26A1 |
| JavaScript | \u26A1 |
| Python | \u26A1 |
| URL-encoded | %E2%9A%A1 |
| SVG | 26A1.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.