Character Counter

A character counter measures the total length of a string by counting every individual symbol, letters, numbers, spaces, punctuation, and special characters. This tool provides two counts: characters with spaces (the total length) and characters without spaces (letters and symbols only, excluding whitespace).

Characters with spaces is the total length of the text including every space. Characters without spaces excludes all whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, newlines). For the text "Hello, World!", the with-spaces count is 13 and the without-spaces count is 11. Most platform character limits count characters with spaces.

Twitter/X allows 280 characters per post (URLs count as 23 regardless of actual length). LinkedIn posts allow 3,000 characters. LinkedIn comments allow 1,250 characters. Instagram captions allow 2,200 characters. SMS messages are 160 characters in GSM-7 encoding (70 characters for Unicode texts). Meta (Facebook) post limit is 63,206 characters.

Yes. A space is a character and is included in the characters with spaces count. Most platform character limits (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram) count spaces. If you need to know only the non-space content length, use the characters without spaces count.

Character count counts each visible symbol as one character. Byte count measures storage size. For plain ASCII text (English letters, digits, punctuation), one character equals one byte. For Unicode characters (emoji, accented letters, Chinese or Arabic script) each character may require 2 to 4 bytes in UTF-8 encoding. Some APIs and databases have byte limits rather than character limits.

In most user-facing counts (including this tool and most social platforms), an emoji counts as one or two characters. Twitter counts standard emoji as two characters because it uses UTF-16 encoding, where many emoji require two code units. Simple emoji like smiley faces count as two on Twitter; combined emoji sequences (like skin tone modifiers) count as more.

Google typically displays meta descriptions up to 155 to 160 characters before truncating. Best practice is to write descriptions between 120 and 158 characters: long enough to be informative, short enough to display in full. Meta titles are typically limited to 50 to 60 characters.

Paste your draft, watch the characters with spaces total, and cut until it reads 280 or less, because X counts spaces, punctuation, and line breaks toward the limit. For example, a 306-character draft needs 26 characters removed: swap "in order to" for "to" (saves 9), delete filler adverbs, and remember each link occupies a flat 23 characters no matter its length. The total updates live as you edit, so trim phrase by phrase and stop the moment you reach 280.

Your emoji counts as 2 because this counter measures UTF-16 code units, and every emoji outside the Basic Multilingual Plane is stored as a surrogate pair of two units. For example, 😊 adds 2 to your total, the 🇺🇸 flag adds 4 (two regional indicator symbols), and a family emoji joined with zero-width joiners adds 8 or more. X applies the same rule, so the number you see here matches what its 280 limit deducts.

Yes, each line break adds exactly 1 to the characters with spaces total, because browsers normalize every pasted break to a single newline, including Windows CRLF pairs from Word or Notepad. For example, the two-line post "Launch day." plus a break plus "We are live." measures 24 characters, not 23. The without spaces figure excludes line breaks entirely, since a newline is whitespace, so check the with spaces number against any platform limit.

No. All counting happens in your browser using JavaScript. Your text never leaves your device: there is no server, no upload, and no account required. Privacy is fully protected.