The star symbol (★ ☆) — the five-pointed star behind ratings, favorites, and bio decoration — plus decorative star variants, the ⭐ emoji, and the asterisk it is not. Click any symbol to copy it instantly.
The star symbol (★, Unicode U+2605 BLACK STAR) and its outline twin (☆, U+2606 WHITE STAR) are five-pointed stars in the Miscellaneous Symbols block, used everywhere from ★★★★☆ ratings to favorites, bullet points, and profile decoration. Unicode also encodes a wide family of decorative stars in the Dingbats block, plus the separate ⭐ star emoji. The five-pointed ★ is a different character from the keyboard asterisk (*), which is a typographic mark for footnotes, multiplication, and wildcards.
The solid and outline five-pointed stars used for ratings and favorites.
Ornamental star glyphs from the Dingbats block for bios and captions.
The color star emoji and the marks people reach for instead of ★.
The five-pointed star is one of the oldest symbols on record, appearing in Sumerian cuneiform and on Bronze Age pottery; drawn as a single unbroken line it forms the pentagram that the Pythagoreans used as a mark of recognition. As a rendered glyph it now stands in for excellence and rating, which is why app stores, reviews, and hotels all count in stars — filled ★ for earned, outline ☆ for the rest.
Unicode splits stars across blocks. The plain ★ (U+2605) and ☆ (U+2606) live in Miscellaneous Symbols, while the decorative four-, five-, and eight-pointed stars — ✦ ✧ ✩ ✪ ✭ ✴ and many more — fill a run of the Dingbats block. The gold ⭐ (U+2B50, WHITE MEDIUM STAR) is a distinct emoji code point added for the star emoji specifically. None of them is the asterisk: that mark, * (U+002A), sits on the keyboard for footnotes, multiplication, and wildcard matching, and only loosely resembles a star.
| Platform / Tool | Method |
|---|---|
| Windows (Word / Unicode input) | Type 2605 (★) or 2606 (☆), then press Alt+X |
| Mac | Character Viewer (Cmd+Ctrl+Space), search "star" |
| iOS / Android | Emoji keyboard, search "star" to insert ⭐ |
| HTML | ★ (★); ☆ (☆) |
CSS content | content: "\2605" |
★ (U+2605) is a five-pointed star glyph used for ratings and decoration; * is the asterisk (U+002A), a keyboard mark for footnotes, multiplication, and wildcards. They look loosely alike but are different characters with different jobs.
Combine the black star ★ (filled) and white star ☆ (empty) in the ratio you want. Copy them from this page, or type 2605 / 2606 then Alt+X in Word.
Type 2605 and press Alt+X for ★, or 2606 for ☆. For the gold ⭐ emoji, use your emoji keyboard instead.
They look similar but are different characters. ★ (U+2605) is a text star that takes on your font's color, while ⭐ (U+2B50) is a dedicated emoji that renders as a gold star on most platforms.
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