Although labile iron plays critical roles in diverse biological processes in living cells, the physiological and pathophysiological functions of iron have not been sufficiently explored, partially due to a lack of methods for visualizing intracellular labile iron. In this edge article, we present a novel turn-on fluorescent probe (RhoNox-1) for the selective detection of Fe2+ based on N-oxide chemistry. Spectroscopic studies combined with DFT calculations and electrochemical studies revealed that fluorescence quenching of RhoNox-1 occurred in physiological conditions, which was attributed to non-radiative deactivation of the excited state of tertiary amine N-oxide substituted xanthene involving a twisted internal charge transfer (TICT) process and partially due to photo-induced electron transfer (PET) from the N-oxide group. RhoNox-1 showed significant enhancement of the fluorescence signal in Fe2+-loaded cells via selective Fe2+-mediated deoxygenation of the N-oxide group and also successfully detected basal and endogenous labile Fe2+ in living cells.