UTF-8

Encoding & Standards

A variable-width Unicode encoding that uses 1 to 4 bytes per character, dominant on the web (used by 98%+ of websites).

UTF-8 is the most widely used Unicode encoding. ASCII characters (U+0000 to U+007F) use 1 byte, making it backward-compatible with ASCII. Characters beyond ASCII use 2-4 bytes.

Most emoji require 4 bytes in UTF-8 because they live in the Supplementary Multilingual Plane (code points above U+FFFF). For example, 😀 (U+1F600) encodes as 0xF0 0x9F 0x98 0x80.

UTF-8's dominance on the web (recommended by W3C, used by HTML5 by default) makes it the standard choice for storing and transmitting emoji in most applications.

Related Terms

BOM (BOM) BOM (BOM)
The Byte Order Mark (U+FEFF) placed at the start of a text file to indicate byte order (endianness) in UTF-16/UTF-32 encodings. Code Unit Code Unit
The minimum bit combination used for encoding a character: 8-bit for UTF-8, 16-bit for UTF-16, and 32-bit for UTF-32. UTF-16 UTF-16
A variable-width Unicode encoding that uses 2 or 4 bytes per character, used internally by JavaScript, Java, and Windows. UTF-32 UTF-32
A fixed-width Unicode encoding that uses exactly 4 bytes per character, providing direct code point mapping at the cost of space.

Related Tools

🔢 Unicode Lookup Unicode Lookup
Enter a codepoint like U+1F600 and get the emoji, encoding details, UTF-8/16 bytes, and HTML entities.

Related Stories

Unicode Lookup: Find Any Emoji by Code Point
Enter a Unicode code point like U+1F600 or paste an emoji to see its full encoding breakdown — UTF-8, UTF-16, HTML entities, and more.
How to Use Emojis in Python: A Developer's Complete Guide
Learn how to work with emojis in Python: strings, encoding, the emoji library, regex, Unicode normalization, and practical code examples.
How to Use Emojis in HTML: Entities, UTF-8, and CSS
Learn how to embed emojis in HTML using UTF-8 characters, numeric entities, and CSS. Includes accessibility tips and cross-browser best practices.
How to Use Emojis in Git Commit Messages
Learn how to use emojis in Git commit messages with the Gitmoji convention. Make your commit history scannable, meaningful, and fun.
How to Type Emojis on Linux: IBus, GNOME, KDE, and More
Learn how to type emojis on Linux using IBus, GNOME's built-in picker, KDE, Unicode input, and terminal methods. Full guide for all desktop environments.
How to Find the Unicode Code Point for Any Emoji
Find the Unicode code point of any emoji using EmojiFYI, browser DevTools, Python, JavaScript, and the Unicode Character Database.