How to use the character counter
- Type or paste your text into the box.
- Read the totals: characters including spaces, characters without spaces, words, lines and the size in bytes.
- Check the platform limits panel. Each bar fills as you type and turns red when you go over the limit, so you know exactly how much to trim.
Characters with spaces vs. without spaces
Most platforms — X (Twitter), SMS, Google search snippets, form fields — count every character including spaces and line breaks. Some academic and translation work is priced or limited by characters without spaces, which removes spaces, tabs and new lines from the total. This tool shows both so you can use whichever your situation requires.
Character limits to know
| Where | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 | Links always count as 23 characters on X. |
| SMS text message | 160 | Only 70 if the message contains emoji or non-Latin letters such as Bangla. |
| Google title tag | ~60 | Google truncates by pixel width; around 50–60 characters is safe. |
| Meta description | ~155 | Longer descriptions are usually cut off in search results. |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | Only the first ~125 characters show before “more”. |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | About 210 characters show before “see more”. |
| YouTube title | 100 | Keep the key words in the first 60–70 characters. |
Platforms change their limits from time to time, so treat these as guides and check the platform’s own help pages for anything critical.
Why the SMS limit changes
Standard text messages use a compact 7-bit character set (GSM-7) that fits 160 characters into one message. As soon as a message contains a character outside that set — an emoji, curly quotes copied from Word, or letters from scripts such as Bangla or Arabic — the whole message switches to Unicode (UCS-2) and the limit drops to 70 characters. Longer messages are split into parts, and each part costs extra. The counter detects this and shows the right SMS limit automatically.
What is the “bytes” figure?
Computers store text as bytes. In UTF-8, the encoding used by almost every website, English letters take one byte each while Bangla, Hindi or Chinese characters take three and most emoji take four. Database fields and some APIs limit the number of bytes rather than characters, which is why a short Bangla sentence can be rejected by a field that seems long enough.
Tips for writing within a limit
- Put the most important words first — many platforms truncate the end.
- Replace long phrases with shorter equivalents and drop words like “very” and “really”.
- Use numerals (“5”) instead of words (“five”) where the style allows.
- Remove double spaces and trailing spaces, which count but add nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Do spaces count as characters?
Yes, on almost every platform. Spaces, punctuation, line breaks and emoji all count. Use the “without spaces” figure only if your instructions specifically ask for it.
How are emoji counted?
This tool counts what you see: one emoji is one character, even when it is made of several code points (such as a family emoji or a flag). Some platforms count emoji as two characters, so leave a little room.
Why does my SMS limit show 70 instead of 160?
Your text contains a character outside the standard GSM-7 set — usually an emoji, a curly quote or non-Latin letters. That switches the message to Unicode, which allows 70 characters per message.
Is my text stored anywhere?
No. Everything is counted locally in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server.
Does a line break count as a character?
Yes. Each line break counts as one character in the “characters” total, as it does on most platforms.