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The same rectangle-and-arrow drawing carries both actions, on different platforms.
This is a genuine ambiguity in the convention rather than a misreading. A rectangle with an arrow leaving through its top edge means 'share' on some platforms and 'upload' on others, and nothing about the drawing settles which. The share icon's other form — three dots joined by lines — is unambiguous, and the arrow-into-a-tray upload icon likewise; the collision is only between the two box-and-arrow drawings.
The box-with-an-arrow drawing serves as a share control on some platforms and an upload control on others.
Drawn from the visual attributes recorded for each symbol. Only traits the two records disagree about are listed.
| Trait | Share symbol | Upload symbol |
|---|---|---|
| Built from | lines and dots, arrows | arrows, lines and dots |
| Symmetry | none | vertical |
| Share symbol | Upload symbol | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Passes the item to another app, person or service | Sends a file to a remote system |
| Unambiguous form | Three dots joined by two lines | An arrow rising out of a tray |
| Ambiguous form | A box with an arrow leaving the top | The same box-and-arrow drawing |
| How to tell | Context: a share sheet follows | Context: a file picker follows |
| Relationship (from Symbolwise's records) | Commonly confused with Upload symbol — The box-with-an-arrow drawing serves as a share control on some platforms and an upload control on others. | Commonly confused with Share symbol — The box-with-an-arrow drawing is used for both actions on different platforms. |
Wikipedia · retrieved 2026-07-31
Tertiary reference. Used for what an icon marks and how widely a convention is followed, never for a claim that any body defines it.
Wikipedia · retrieved 2026-07-31
Tertiary reference. Used for what an icon marks and how widely a convention is followed, never for a claim that any body defines it.
Unicode Code Chart: Arrows (U+2190–U+21FF)
The Unicode Consortium · retrieved 2026-07-31
Authoritative for the character's code point, name and block only. Unicode assigns identity; it does not define what a symbol means in use.
Both are drawn as one continuous decorative stroke with a closed loop and a tail that crosses back over itself, which is why a description of the shape alone reaches both. The clef is far taller, spans a stave, and its spiral encircles one specific line — that encircled line is the note G, and it is the only reason the shape is drawn where it is.
The ampersand is a ligature of the Latin word et, still visible in some italic forms where the e and the t can be picked out. The Tironian et is a separate mark descending from a Roman shorthand, shaped like a small seven, and it is in daily public use in Ireland as the written form of 'agus'. A reader who knows only the ampersand takes the other for a numeral, which on a bilingual road sign produces a confidently wrong place name.
A building's assembly point is a safe place to stand once you are outside. A ship's muster station is a staffed step in a procedure: you are counted against a roll, briefed, and if necessary allocated to a survival craft, which is why it has a letter or a number and appears on your cabin door card. Both are green, both show grouped figures, and both are called an assembly point in ordinary speech — and treating a muster station as somewhere merely to wait is the misunderstanding drills exist to correct.
As punctuation the asterisk points at a footnote or marks a required field. In a filename pattern typed at a shell it matches any run of characters, including none — and the shell expands it against real filenames before the command runs, so the command never sees the pattern at all. That expansion is the part people are surprised by.