The Moon's cycle is a loop, so this page starts it at Waning crescent moon, U+1F318, above Copy. Waning crescent emoji copy and paste is one press; the other seven phases follow in order, each with its name under it.
Read the full guide
Pick a phase
After the waning crescent come new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous and last quarter. Waxing means the lit part is thickening, from new to full. Waning means it is thinning. Search reads names: waning finds four tiles, gibbous three.
Text moons and whole cycles
โฝ and โพ are characters, not emoji, and take the colour of your words. Unicode names them first and last quarter moon. Its names list also pairs โ with the new moon and โ with the full moon. Under Cycles are 13 ready rows: all eight in order, each half, the four major phases and the four minor ones.
Tips
For waning gibbous emoji copy and paste, tap the seventh tile, Waning gibbous moon. It is U+1F316, the first phase after full.
In the sky, a waning moon is lit on the left from the Northern Hemisphere and on the right from the Southern.
Questions and answers
Which emoji is the waning crescent?
๐, U+1F318, which Unicode names waning crescent moon. It is the last of the eight phase emoji in Unicode's list, straight after the last quarter. The real one is 49 to 1 percent lit, and is up from before dawn to early afternoon.
What is the difference between a waning crescent and a waning gibbous?
How much is lit. A waning gibbous comes straight after the full moon and is 99 to 51 percent lit. Gibbous means bulging outwards. A waning crescent comes after the last quarter and is 49 to 1 percent lit. Both are thinning.
Is there a text symbol for the waning crescent?
No. Outside the four emoji, no Unicode character has waxing, waning or gibbous in its name. The plain text moons are โฝ, first quarter moon, and โพ, last quarter moon. Both are in the third group, with four circles that stand in for phases.
When were the moon phase emoji added?
In two halves. Emoji 0.6 had the new moon, first quarter, waxing gibbous and full moon. Emoji 1.0 added the waxing crescent and all three waning phases: gibbous, last quarter and crescent. Only Full moon has a plain text form.
๐First quarter moonU+1F313. Half the disc lit, a quarter of the way round the cycle. Up in the afternoon and early night. Emoji 0.6.
๐Full moonU+1F315. The whole disc lit, up from sunset to sunrise. The only one of the eight with a plain text form. Emoji 0.6.
๐Last quarter moonU+1F317. Half the disc lit again, three quarters of the way round. Up late at night and in the morning. Also called the third quarter. Emoji 1.0.
๐New moonU+1F311. The disc is in shade and too close to the Sun to see. Unicode's names list pairs it with the text character Black circle. Emoji 0.6.
๐Waning crescent moonU+1F318. The last phase before the new moon: 49 to 1 percent lit and thinning. In the sky it is up from before dawn to early afternoon. Emoji 1.0.
๐Waning gibbous moonU+1F316. The first phase after full: 99 to 51 percent lit and thinning. Up for most of the night and the early morning. Emoji 1.0.
๐Waxing crescent moonU+1F312. From 1 to 49 percent lit and thickening. It is up from late morning to after dusk. CLDR adds dreams. Emoji 1.0.
๐Waxing gibbous moonU+1F314. From 51 to 99 percent lit and thickening. Up from late afternoon for most of the night. Emoji 0.6.
Show all 30 moons (22 more)
Other moon emoji 3
๐Crescent moonU+1F319. Filed straight after the waning crescent, but it is no phase: Unicode's names list says it may indicate either the first or the last quarter. CLDR adds ramadan. Emoji 0.6.
๐ฅฎMoon cakeU+1F96E. Filed under Food and Drink. CLDR lists autumn, festival and cake. Emoji 11.0.
๐Moon viewing ceremonyU+1F391. Filed under Activities, with the events. CLDR lists celebration, ceremony, moon and viewing. Emoji 0.6.
Text moons 6
โฝText first quarter moonU+263D First quarter moon. A character, not an emoji: it takes the colour of your words. The names list also calls it the alchemical symbol for silver.
โText first quarter, as a circleU+25D0 Circle with left half black. The names list cross-refers it to the first quarter moon emoji.
โText full moonU+25CB White circle. The names list cross-refers it to the full moon emoji.
โพText last quarter moonU+263E Last quarter moon. The partner of the first quarter. Unicode has these two text moons, and nothing in plain text is named waxing, waning or gibbous.
โText last quarter, as a circleU+25D1 Circle with right half black. The names list cross-refers it to the last quarter moon emoji.
โText new moonU+25CF Black circle. Unicode's names list cross-refers it to the new moon emoji.
Cycles and sets 13
โ โ โ โNew, first quarter, full, last quarter in plain text
โฝ โ โพFirst quarter, full, last quarter in plain text
๐๐๐๐Four major phasesNew moon, then first quarter moon, then full moon, then last quarter moon. The other four are the minor phases.
๐๐๐๐Four minor phasesWaxing crescent moon, then waxing gibbous moon, then waning gibbous moon, then waning crescent moon. The in-between ones. Each lasts about a week.
๐๐๐๐Four moon facesNew moon face, then first quarter moon face, then full moon face, then last quarter moon face. The moons with faces, in cycle order: new, first quarter, full, last quarter.
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐Full cycleNew moon, then waxing crescent moon, then first quarter moon, then waxing gibbous moon, then full moon, then waning gibbous moon, then last quarter moon, then waning crescent moon. All eight in order, new moon to waning crescent. About 29.5 days in the sky.
๐๐New and fullNew moon, then full moon. The two ends of the cycle.
๐๐The two crescentsWaxing crescent moon, then waning crescent moon. Waxing first, waning second.
๐๐The two gibbous moonsWaxing gibbous moon, then waning gibbous moon. Waxing first, waning second.
๐๐๐๐๐Waning halfFull moon, then waning gibbous moon, then last quarter moon, then waning crescent moon, then new moon. Full back to new: the lit part thins all the way.
๐๐๐Waning moons onlyWaning gibbous moon, then last quarter moon, then waning crescent moon. The three emoji between full and new.
๐๐๐๐๐Waxing halfNew moon, then waxing crescent moon, then first quarter moon, then waxing gibbous moon, then full moon. New to full: the lit part thickens all the way.
๐๐๐Waxing moons onlyWaxing crescent moon, then first quarter moon, then waxing gibbous moon. The three emoji between new and full.
How this list was compiled: Built by script on 2026-09-19, not typed by hand. The emoji, their names, code points and Emoji version numbers come from emoji-test.txt, version 18.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/emoji/emoji-test.txt); names are the CLDR short names printed in that file, in sentence case. The eight phases are U+1F311 to U+1F318 and sit together in that file, new moon first. This page starts the loop at the waning crescent, the phase it is named for, and runs on in cycle order. Fifteen emoji have moon in their name: these eight, the crescent moon, the moon viewing ceremony and the moon cake as tiles, and the four moon faces in one row under Cycles. The search words are from the CLDR English annotations (https://github.com/unicode-org/cldr/blob/main/common/annotations/en.xml and https://github.com/unicode-org/cldr/blob/main/common/annotationsDerived/en.xml, main branch). The text forms come from emoji-variation-sequences.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/emoji/emoji-variation-sequences.txt). Every character that is not an emoji was checked against UnicodeData.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt), and a note that names a character uses its name from that file. Notes about what a character is used for come from the annotations in NamesList.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/NamesList.txt). The names list cross-refers Black circle to the new moon emoji, White circle to the full moon emoji, and the two half-black circles and the two text quarter moons to the first and last quarter emoji; it says the crescent moon emoji may indicate either the first or last quarter moon. No character outside the four emoji has waxing, waning or gibbous in its name. What each phase is (the share of the disc that is lit, thickening or thinning, when it is up, major and minor phases, about 29.5 days for a cycle and about a week for each in-between phase) comes from the Wikipedia article Lunar phase, read as wikitext on 2026-09-20 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase?action=raw); the build script checks each sentence it leans on. The 13 rows under Cycles are this site's own arrangements of those emoji and characters, and their names are our own. All sources were checked on 2026-09-19. Licence: own work