What are portal glyphs in No Man's Sky?
Glyphs are the sixteen symbols carved on every portal in No Man's Sky. Dial twelve of them and the portal opens on one exact planet, anywhere in the galaxy you stand in. That sequence of twelve is a portal address, also called a portal code or glyph code.
Each glyph is a hexadecimal digit, from 0 to F. That is why the same address can be written two ways: as twelve glyphs on the portal, or as twelve characters such as 1157CE589C1E. This decoder reads both, and so does every page of this site: put the galaxy number and the code in the address bar, like glyphs.had.sh/1-1157CE589C1E, and you land on the system.
The 16 glyphs and their names
The game gives the glyphs no names. Travellers did, and these are the names you will hear on Discord, Reddit and in community hubs:
0Sunset1Bird2Face3Diplo4Eclipse5Balloon6Boat7Bug8Dragonfly9GalaxyAVoxelBFishCTentDRocketETreeFAtlas
How to read a portal address
Read the twelve glyphs from left to right. They always come in the same order: planet, star system, then region.
- 1st glyph, the planet. Its index in the system, from 1 to 6. Change it and you stay in the same system, on another world.
- Glyphs 2 to 4, the star system. Its number inside the region.
- Glyphs 5 and 6, the height. Where the region sits above or below the galactic plane.
- Glyphs 7 to 9, then 10 to 12, the position. Where the region sits on the galactic plane, along two axes.
Take 1157CE589C1E: planet 1, system 157, and the region CE589C1E. That is Cinder Pearls, a system of the Galactic Hub in Euclid.
Two addresses that end with the same eight glyphs are in the same region, a few light years apart. Keep those eight, change the first four, and you visit the neighbours.
Glyph codes, hex codes and galactic coordinates
Players share the same place in three forms, and the decoder takes all of them:
- Glyphs, as seen on the portal. Click them in the grid above.
- A 12-character hex code, like
1157CE589C1E. Paste it in the field. - Galactic coordinates, the four groups of four shown by a signal booster, like
041D:004D:0D88:0157(Cinder Pearls again). Paste them as they are and the decoder converts them to glyphs.
One address, 256 galaxies
A portal address only works in the galaxy you are in. The same twelve glyphs point to another system in Hilbert, another again in Calypso, and so on through all 256 galaxies. That is why every galaxy has its own decoder on this site: open the one of the galaxy you play in, or start from the list of all 256 galaxies.
No portal crosses from one galaxy to the next. To change galaxy, you travel to the centre of the one you are in.
Glyphs to the centre of a galaxy
The centre of every galaxy has its own page, with the regions closest to the core and the eight glyphs that lead to each of them: the centre of Euclid, of Hilbert, of Calypso, and so on for all 256 galaxies.
How to get the glyphs
- Follow the main story, the Artemis Path, until it brings you to portals.
- Find the graves of Travellers on planets: each one teaches you a glyph.
- Talk to the Travellers you meet in space stations and trading posts.
Until you know all sixteen, a portal only shows the glyphs you have learnt. You can still read any address here.
How to use a portal
- Find a portal on a planet surface. A monolith or a portal interface can point you to one.
- Dial the twelve glyphs of your destination on its console.
- Step through. You arrive on the planet of the address, in the system it names.
Before you go, note the address of the place you are leaving. Nobody remembers twelve glyphs.
Why glyphs matter
- Visit the bases and planets other players share.
- Join a community hub, an event or a friend.
- Hunt a specific ship, multi-tool or creature.
- Reach the regions closest to the galactic centre.
When an address leads somewhere else
- Wrong galaxy. The most common case: the address was shared from another galaxy. Check its number.
- Wrong first glyph. Same system, another planet.
- A glyph read wrongly. Bird and Dragonfly, Sunset and Eclipse look alike on a small screenshot. Compare them with the list above.
Read more in what glyphs are and how to use a direct URL.