Animals & Nature · Emoji 11.0
🦠Microbe Emoji
Generally, the 🦠 emoji means a germ, a virus, or something that causes illness. People use it to express a feeling of sickness or to describe something infectious.
The 🦠 emoji is a microbe, basically a tiny germ.
- Unicode
- U+1F9A0
- Released
- 2018
- Shortcode
- :microbe:
- Skin tones
- No
01 — Meaning
What does the 🦠 Microbe emoji mean?
People search for this character under a lot of different names, and the ones we have collected number 4.
02 — Platforms
Microbe emoji on iPhone, Android, WhatsApp and X
Vendors keep repainting this one. Counting the archived versions further down, the microbe has been drawn in 3 ways.
See the whole set the way each system draws it — iPhone emojis, Android emojis, WhatsApp emojis and Discord emojis.
03 — Copy & codes
Microbe emoji copy and paste
Tap any value to copy it. The emoji itself works everywhere, the escapes are for your code, and the shortcode Slack and Discord expect is :microbe:.
All emoji copy and paste →In your code
Pick the notation your language wants. They all resolve to the microbe, code point U+1F9A0.
04 — How to type
How to type the 🦠 Microbe emoji
Every system hides the emoji key somewhere else. Here is where, plus the raw codes for U+1F9A0 when there is no key at all.
05 — Download
Microbe emoji PNG and SVG
Transparent PNG and SVG for thumbnails, decks and design files — one file per vendor, which makes 9. Artwork belongs to whoever drew it, so check the licence before commercial use.
Emoji PNG library →
Apple
Google
Twitter / X
Facebook
Microsoft
06 — Combinations
Microbe emoji combinations
Ready-made combos built around microbe for bios, captions and comments. Tap to copy.
All combinations →Want two emojis fused into one sticker instead of set side by side? Emoji Kitchen does that with 🦠, and there are more ready-made pairs in emoji combinations and aesthetic emoji combos.
08 — In conversation
What 🦠 means from a girl or a guy
The same character carries a different intent depending on the sender and the message before it.
09 — Around the world
What 🦠 means in other countries
Since 2020 this reads first as illness or contagion for most people, well ahead of its neutral biology-class meaning.
Commonly used to mean “I’m sick” or reference COVID-19 specifically.
Neutral reference to bacteria, viruses, or germs in general.
Before you send it: Expect it to read as “I’m contagious” by default; clarify if you actually mean something else.
10 — Apps
What 🦠 means on TikTok, WhatsApp and Discord
The character is the same everywhere, but the artwork and the reading of it change from app to app.
12 — History
Where the 🦠 Microbe emoji came from
Approved as part of Emoji 11.0, the microbe has been on phones for years now — counting from its release, 8.
Same character every time — U+1F9A0 never changed. Only the drawing did, and only because each vendor redraws its own set. Someone on an older phone still sees the older picture.
Microbe was approved as U+1F9A0 and shipped in Emoji 11.0 (2018). Phones usually get new artwork about a year after approval, in a system update.
Every vendor keeps its own artwork, so 🦠 is redrawn by Apple, Google, Twitter / X, Facebook, OpenMoji, Samsung, Microsoft, WhatsApp, JoyPixels. The character you send never changes — only the picture does.
13 — FAQ