Every kaomoji smile here keeps its mouth closed and its arms down: 95 faces with a curve, an underscore or nothing at all under two happy eyes. Tap one and it is copied. Seventeen need only a keyboard, (^_^) first.
Read the full guide
Pick a smile, tap it
Tap a tile and that smile is copied. Keyboard classics come first, then small eyes, big round eyes, eyes curved or shut, eyebrows, dimples, faces without brackets and nine with a Japanese word. Search reads the labels: smug finds five faces, dimples six, sunglasses one, and shortest finds ^^.
Which smiling kaomoji has which mouth
Thirty-nine faces use ‿, a character named Undertie, U+203F. Fourteen use ᴗ, Latin small letter bottom half o, and six use the smaller ᵕ. Both are phonetic letters, so Everyday characters hides them. Two use ⌣, whose Unicode name is simply Smile, U+2323.
Tips
Wikipedia dates the original kaomoji to 1986, and it is the first face on this page: (^_^).
A 1912 essay proposed ‿ as a smiling mouth to close a joking sentence, says Wikipedia's Emoticon article.
☺ is White smiling face, U+263A, which is on Unicode's emoji list, so it is not here.
Questions and answers
How do you type a kaomoji smile on a keyboard?
Open bracket, caret, underscore, caret, close bracket: (^_^). Drop the brackets for ^_^, or the mouth as well for ^^, which Wikipedia's Kaomoji article gives as a common eyes-only form. The Keyboard only chip shows all 17 that need nothing else.
Why do kaomoji smile with their eyes?
Wikipedia's Kaomoji article says the style is read upright and tends to emphasize the eyes rather than the mouth, in contrast to sideways emoticons such as :-). That is why (^_^) smiles over a flat underscore, and why ^^ needs no mouth at all.
What is the difference between a smile and a happy kaomoji?
On this site a smile keeps the mouth closed and the arms down. An open mouth such as ▽ or ∀ makes a happy face, eyes squeezed shut over it make a laugh, and raised arms make an excited one. Each has its own page.
What does にこにこ mean?
Niko niko. Wiktionary gives it as an adverb, with a grin, and as a noun, a smile. Nine faces here carry a word like it: nikkori is a beaming smile, egao a smiling face, and ninmari a complacent smile, which suits (￣‿￣).
(ಠ‿ಠ)Staring eyes, polite smile. Borrows ಠ from Kannada.
(•‿‿•)Bullet eyes, two underties
(⊙‿⊙)Circled dot eyes: a startled smile
(⌐■‿■)Dark glasses, curved mouth
(◉‿◉)Fisheye eyes: wide awake and smiling
(●ᴗ●)Solid black eyes, half o mouth. Borrows ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(●‿●)Solid black eyes, curved mouth
(◑‿◐)Eyes crossed: a goofy smile
(◔‿◔)Eyes rolled up, still smiling
(◕ᴗ◕)Big round eyes, half o mouth. Borrows ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(◕‿‿◕)Two underties: a very wide smile
(◕‿◕)Big round eyes, curved mouth
(o‿o)Letter o eyes, curved mouth
Eyes curved or shut: content 16
(-‿-)Hyphen eyes, curved mouth: quietly pleased
(´ー｀)Accent eyes, long mouth: at ease
(˘ᴗ˘)Breve eyes, half o mouth: serene. Borrows ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(˘‿˘)Breve eyes: content, eyes closed
(˘⌣˘)Breve eyes and the Smile character
(ᵔᴗᵔ)Small curved eyes, small curved mouth. Borrows ᵔ ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(ᵔᵕᵔ)Three small curves in a row. Borrows ᵔ ᵕ from Phonetic Extensions.
(∩_∩)Intersection signs for eyes
(⌒_⌒)Arc eyes over an underscore
(⌒‿⌒)Arc eyes, curved mouth
(─‿─)Ruled line eyes, curved mouth
(◠ᴗ◠)Half circle eyes, half o mouth. Borrows ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(◠‿◠)Half circle eyes, the full beam
(￣ω￣)Macron eyes, omega mouth: rather pleased
(￣‿￣)Macron eyes, curved mouth: satisfied
(￣ー￣)Macron eyes, long mouth: quietly smug
Eyebrows and tilts 8
(`‿´)Brows down, smile up: mischief
(´‿`)Accent eyes, curved mouth: fond
(´◡`)Accent eyes, bowl of a smile: warm
(´･ᴗ･`)Soft brows, gentle smile. Borrows ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(ˊᵕˋ)Tilted accents for eyes, tiny curve. Borrows ᵕ from Phonetic Extensions.
(•̀ᴗ•́)Lowered brows: a confident smile. Borrows ◌̀ ◌́ from Combining Diacritical Marks and ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(•́‿•̀)Brows raised in the middle: a sorry smile. Borrows ◌́ ◌̀ from Combining Diacritical Marks.
(｀ー´)Brows down, long mouth: up to something
Dimples and cheek swirls 9
(´｡• ᵕ •｡`)Soft brows, dimples, a spaced out face. Borrows ᵕ from Phonetic Extensions.
(๑˘ᴗ˘๑)Eyes closed, a swirl on each cheek. Borrows ๑ from Thai and ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(๑•ᴗ•๑)A swirl on each cheek. Borrows ๑ from Thai and ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(◦˙ᵕ˙◦)Tiny face between two white bullets. Borrows ᵕ from Phonetic Extensions.
(｡^‿^｡)Caret eyes and dimples
(｡˘‿˘｡)Eyes closed, dimples showing
(｡•ᴗ•｡)Bullet eyes, dimples, half o mouth. Borrows ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(｡◕‿◕｡)Big eyes with a dimple each side
(｡･ω･｡)Dot eyes, omega mouth, dimples
No brackets 9
^-^Hyphen mouth, no brackets
^.^Full stop mouth, no brackets
^^Two carets: the shortest smile here
^_^The original without brackets
ᵔᴗᵔThree small curves, no brackets. Borrows ᵔ ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
•ᴗ•Three characters: bullets and a half o. Borrows ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
◕‿◕Big eyes with no face around them
◠‿◠Arches and a curve, nothing else
uwuThree letters: shut eyes, w mouth
With a word 9
(-‿-) ふふFufu, the sound of gentle laughter
(^-^) にこりNikori, with a bright smile
(^_^) にこにこNiko niko: with a grin, a smile
(^‿^) にっこりNikkori, with a beaming smile
(˘‿˘) 微笑みHohoemi, a smile
(•‿•) スマイルSumairu: smile in katakana
(⌒‿⌒) にこやかNikoyaka, smiling
(◠‿◠) 笑顔Egao, a smiling face
(￣‿￣) にんまりNinmari, with a complacent smile
How this list was compiled: Built by script on 2026-09-19, not typed into the page by hand. The 95 faces are this site's own selection and arrangement, put together for this page from the parts a kaomoji is made of (brackets, eyes and a closed mouth). Some are forms in common use that nobody owns. Wikipedia's article Kaomoji (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaomoji, read 2026-09-19) dates the original kaomoji (^_^) to 1986, says the style can be understood without tilting one's head and tends to emphasize the eyes rather than the mouth, that the brackets are often left out, as in ^^ and ^-^, and that emoticons of the eyes alone, such as ^^, are common. Wikipedia's List of emoticons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons, read 2026-09-19) puts (^_^), (^^), (^.^), (^J^) and ^_^ in one row. Wikipedia's article Emoticon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon, read 2026-09-19) says a 1912 essay proposed the mark ‿ as a smiling mouth to close a joking sentence. The labels, groups and order are our own. The Japanese words come from Wiktionary, each entry read 2026-09-19: niko niko, with a grin, and as a noun a smile (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/にこにこ); nikkori, with a beaming smile, with a grin (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/にっこり); egao, a smile, a happy face, a smiling face (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/笑顔); hohoemi, a smile (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/微笑み); sumairu, a smile (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/スマイル); nikori, with a bright smile (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/にこり); ninmari, with a complacent smile, grinning broadly (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/にんまり); nikoyaka, smiling (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/にこやか); fufu, onomatopoeia representing gentle laughter (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ふふ). Every character of every face was looked up in UnicodeData.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt), and must be an assigned character. The curved mouths are Undertie (U+203F), Lower half circle (U+25E1), Latin small letter bottom half o (U+1D17), Modifier letter small bottom half o (U+1D55) and the character whose name is Smile (U+2323, in the block Miscellaneous Technical). Emoji are left out, which is why White smiling face (U+263A) is not here. "Borrows" under a face names each character from outside the blocks of punctuation, common symbols and Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Japanese letters, with its script from Scripts.txt (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/Scripts.txt) or, for a Latin or common character, its block from Blocks.txt (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/Blocks.txt). No face holds a character with the Emoji property in emoji-data.txt, version 18.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/emoji/emoji-data.txt), beyond the keyboard's own. "Short" means 6 code points or fewer, spaces counted. "Keyboard only" means every character is printable ASCII. Nothing here says how any one device draws a face. Licence: own work