Copy a bullet point
Tap a symbol and it is on your clipboard. The first row is the one most people want: the plain • and its close relatives.
Classic bullets
Squares & diamonds
Arrow bullets
Check marks & boxes
Stars & ornaments
Dashes
Numbered
Turn your lines into a bulleted list
Plain-text boxes have no list button and do not continue a bullet when you press Enter. Type one item per line, pick a bullet, and copy the whole list. Blank lines are kept as paragraph breaks, and a bullet or number already at the start of a line is replaced rather than doubled.
What is a bullet point, exactly?
The bullet • is Unicode U+2022 — the character behind the HTML entity •. It is an ordinary text character, so it takes the colour, size and font of the text around it, and it survives copy and paste anywhere that accepts text. That is the difference between a bullet symbol and a bullet list: a word processor stores a list as formatting and draws the bullets for you, while a pasted bullet is a character you put there yourself.
Which bullet should I use?
- • Plain bullet — the default. Exists in every font, reads as “list item” at a glance.
- ◦ White bullet and ▪ small square — good for a second level under a • item.
- ➤ ➔ ► Arrows — lend direction to a list of steps or a call to action. They are drawn larger than a dot, so they cost more visual weight.
- ✓ Check marks — for features, benefits and to-dos. ✓ is the most reliable; ✔ and ☑ are sometimes drawn as coloured emoji on phones.
- – Dash — the quietest option, and the safest when you are unsure what the viewer’s font supports.
- ① ② ③ Numbers — for short ordered lists. Beyond ten they run out, and the list builder’s plain 1. 2. 3. mode is the better choice.
Where bullet points work
Anywhere plain text is accepted: Instagram bios and captions, X posts, LinkedIn posts, Facebook posts, Discord channel topics and “about me” sections, YouTube descriptions, email subject lines, spreadsheet cells and file names. Line breaks are the limit: a bio or post box that lets you press Enter lets you stack bullets; a single-line field does not. The reliable exception is usernames, which platforms restrict to letters, numbers and a little punctuation, so a bullet there is stripped or refused.
What a pasted bullet cannot do
- It will not continue itself. Press Enter and you get a blank line, not a new bullet. Use the list builder above to add them all at once.
- It will not indent wrapped lines. If an item is long enough to wrap, the second line starts under the bullet, not under the text. Keep each item short, ideally one line.
- It is not a real list in rich editors. In Google Docs, Word or Notion a • you type is just a character; use the app’s own list button there so the list reflows and exports properly.
- It does not make a Markdown list. In Markdown, GitHub or Reddit a real list starts with
-or*followed by a space; a Unicode bullet renders as plain text.
Tips & tricks
- Pick one bullet per list. Mixing three kinds in a single bio reads as clutter, not design.
- An Instagram bio is capped at 150 characters. A bullet and a space cost two characters per line, so a four-item list spends eight on markers alone.
- Want a decorative divider or a frame around the list instead? Aesthetic Symbols has stars, hearts, dividers and borders.
- Pair a bullet with a bold or small caps heading and the list reads as structure rather than noise.
FAQ
The standard bullet is • — Unicode U+2022 “BULLET”, the same character as the HTML entity •. Its siblings are ◦ (U+25E6, white bullet), ‣ (U+2023, triangular bullet) and ⁃ (U+2043, hyphen bullet). The small dot ∙ (U+2219) and the middle dot · (U+00B7) look similar but are different characters meant for other jobs.
On Windows, hold Alt and type 0149 on the numeric keypad. On a Mac with a US layout, press Option+8. On an iPhone, long-press the hyphen key on the numbers keyboard and a bullet appears among the options; on Android the symbols page of the keyboard has one. Copying it from the grid above works everywhere, including places where those shortcuts do not.
Because a pasted bullet is just a character, not a list. A word processor or a notes app turns a bullet into a real list item that auto-continues when you press Enter. A plain-text box such as an Instagram bio or an X post stores characters only, so you have to put a bullet at the start of every line yourself. That is what the list builder above does for you.
The plain • and the en dash – are the safest: they exist in essentially every font on every device. Arrows, check marks and ornaments come from other Unicode blocks and are covered by most phones and computers, but an older or stripped-down device can show an empty box for them. If a bullet shows as a box on your own phone, it will for part of your audience too.
Characters such as ✔ and ☑ have both a plain-text form and an emoji form, and some phones pick the emoji one, drawing a coloured tile instead of a monochrome mark. ✓ is the most reliable of the check marks. Preview on a phone before committing one to a bio.
Yes in bios, captions, posts, display names and channel topics — all of them accept these characters, and line breaks work in the places where you can press Enter. Usernames are the exception: they are limited to letters, numbers and a little punctuation, so a bullet there is stripped or refused.
Used lightly, no. A screen reader typically announces • as “bullet” at the start of each line, which is what a sighted reader sees too. The trouble starts with long runs of ornamental symbols or numbered circles, which are read out by their full Unicode names. Keep decoration to the start of a line and put the information in normal text.
No. The list builder is a few lines of JavaScript running in your browser, and the symbols are static characters on the page. Nothing is sent to a server, and closing the tab erases everything you typed.