How to count characters
- 1Type or paste your text into the Your text box, or click Paste to read it from the clipboard. Click Sample to see how the numbers behave.
- 2Read the character count with spaces in the first card and the figure without spaces next to it. Words, letters, digits, lines, sentences and UTF-8 bytes update on every keystroke.
- 3Scroll to Character limits to see how many characters you have left for an X post, an SMS, an SEO title tag, a meta description, an Instagram caption and a LinkedIn post. A bar turns red once you go over.
- 4Edit the text until the bars fit, then copy it back into your editor, CMS or message. Click Clear to start again.
How this character counter works
A character counter tells you how long a piece of text is, which matters whenever a field has a hard limit. This tool counts what a reader would call a character, not the internal units your programming language uses. An emoji with a skin tone, a flag or a family emoji counts as one, and so does a letter with a combining accent. That matches how X, Instagram and most form fields count, and it avoids the surprise you get from code that simply reports string length.
The character count with spaces includes spaces, tabs and line breaks. The count without spaces drops all whitespace, which is the figure some editors, translation jobs and academic limits ask for. Next to them you get a letter counter (only alphabetic characters), digits, words, sentences, lines and the size of the text in UTF-8 bytes, which is useful when a database column or an API limits bytes rather than characters. An accented letter takes two bytes and most emoji take four, so bytes can be much larger than characters.
Limits are shown as live bars so this doubles as a character limit checker. The numbers are the commonly cited ones: 280 for an X post, 160 for one SMS segment, around 60 for a title tag and 160 for a meta description, 2,200 for an Instagram caption and 3,000 for a LinkedIn post. Platforms change their rules, and search engines truncate by pixel width rather than characters, so treat these as guides and check the current rules where it matters.
Counting runs entirely in your browser as you type, so private drafts, contracts and code are never uploaded.
When people count characters
Social posts and captions
Trim a post to 280 characters for X, or check a caption against the Instagram and LinkedIn limits before you publish.
SEO titles and descriptions
Keep a title tag near 60 characters and a meta description under 160 so less of it is cut off in search results.
SMS and notifications
See whether a text message fits one 160-character segment, and how many bytes a push notification payload uses.
Form and database limits
Count characters online to check that a username, bio or comment fits a field limit, using the byte count when the limit is measured in bytes.
Frequently asked questions
Does the character count include spaces?
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Yes. The main Characters figure counts spaces and line breaks. The Without spaces card shows the count with all whitespace removed.
How are emoji counted?
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Each visible emoji counts as one character, even when it is built from several code points, such as a thumbs-up with a skin tone or a family emoji. Bytes and some platform limits may count them differently.
Why is the byte count higher than the character count?
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Text is stored as UTF-8, where plain English letters take one byte but accented letters take two, many symbols three and emoji four. The Bytes card shows the stored size.
Is this accurate for X (Twitter)?
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It uses the 280-character limit and counts characters as people see them. X gives links a fixed length and weights some scripts more heavily, so a post can still differ slightly in the composer.
Is my text uploaded or saved?
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No. All counting happens locally in your browser and nothing is sent to a server or stored.
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