List of Facebook Symbols and Icons

1. Facebook Shortcuts Bar

The shortcuts bar is present at the top in Android and at the bottom on iOS. It comprises of shortcuts that let you access important Facebook features quickly.

Home

This icon will take you to your Facebook feed from any screen. Also, if you are scrolling the feed and want to go to the top, tap or click on this icon to reach the top quickly.

Flag

This icon represents Facebook pages. It lets you access the pages that you manage, view your liked pages, create a new page, and more.

TV

The TV or Play icon is the Facebook Watch shortcut from where you can watch videos. Find out how to watch Facebook videos with others.

Shop

Shop symbol, as obvious, represents the Facebook Marketplace. Tap on it to buy and sell items.

Three People

This is a shortcut for your Groups. Here you will find a feed exclusively for group posts. You can also pin the groups for faster access.

Bell

All your notifications are housed under the Bell icon.

Three-bar

The three-bar icon opens the menu, which contains all the other shortcuts and features including Settings. Interestingly, Facebook lets you customize the shortcuts bar allowing you to hide or show shortcuts as per your preference. To do that, open the Facebook app Menu using the three-bar icon. Go to Settings & privacy > Settings > Shortcuts bar. Enable or disable the required options. Tip: Touch and hold the shortcut icon on Android to access its settings.

2. Create Post

The What’s on your mind box lets you publish content on Facebook. You can write a simple text status update, upload photos, go live, ask for recommendations, and much more. Simply tap on the What’s on your mind box to open the Create post screen and view the available options. Before the box, you will find your profile picture. Tap on it to view your profile screen. On the right side of the box, the Album icon will take you to the Gallery from where you can select and upload photos to Facebook. On the Create post screen, the available options will show labels next to them. If, however, the icons are minimized, tap on the three-dot next to them to expand and view their meanings. Next, you have the privacy setting box under your name. Tap on it to customize the privacy setting of the post. You might also find a language symbol in the What’s on your mind field. Use it to type in different languages. Find out how to change the Facebook language.

3. Facebook Privacy Symbols

Under every post, you will see four types of privacy icons. These tell you about the audience selected for the post.

Tiny Globe

This icon means that the post is public and everyone can see it.

Silhouettes of two or three people

The two-person icon means that post is for friends only, whereas silhouettes of three people indicate that the post is shared with the person’s friends and their friends.

Cog

This icon indicates that the post has been shared with custom settings allowing only some people to see it.

4. Facebook Search Symbols

When you open the search screen, you will find three symbols: clock, lens, and cross.

Grey Clock Symbol

The grey clock icon next to some search items means they are from your past searches. That is, you have already searched for them in the past.

Lens

If you see Lens symbol next to some names, it means Facebook is auto-suggesting them based on your search query.

Cross

The cross (X) icon next to the search queries lets you remove them from search history.

5. Facebook Comment Symbols

On the comments screen, you will find the following four symbols from Facebook:

Camera

Use it to add photos from your phone in the comments.

GIF

This icon lets you add a GIF as a comment.

Avatar

Tap the Avatar icon to create or add your own personalized avatar to the comments.

Sticker

Use this icon to add a sticker to the comment. You can also install sticker packs from this icon. Apart from the above icons, you will find some random symbols as comments from Facebook users. For instance, you might have often seen comments with a dot (.), follow, or f. People usually comment on these so that they receive notifications from the post when someone else comments. However, you don’t need to do that because Facebook provides a native feature to turn on post notifications. For that, tap on the three-dot icon on the post and choose Turn on notifications for this post.

6. Profile Picture Symbols

Blue Circle

The blue ring around the profile picture of a user means that they have added a Facebook story. Tap on the profile picture to view the story.

Grey or White Circle

Once you view someone’s stories, the blue circle will appear as greyish-white indicating that you have seen all the stories from the person.

Make Facebook Private

I hope the guide on Facebook symbols’ meaning helped you in understanding their meaning. Learn the best tips to secure your FB account. If you don’t like Facebook, find out how to delete or deactivate it. If you are an Instagram user, you should check our guide on Instagram symbols’ meaning.