Character counter
Count characters against a limit: visible characters, without spaces, UTF-16 units, and UTF-8 bytes.
Paste a caption, a meta description, or any draft that has a character limit.
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Character count
No text yet. Paste, type, or load the sample.
The main total counts Unicode graphemes, the marks a reader usually sees as one character. Spaces are included there and removed in the second total.
0characters
- Without spaces
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- UTF-16 code units
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- UTF-8 bytes
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How to use the character counter
- Paste the exact string that will be submitted: the caption, the title, the abstract, or the message. Do not include notes you will delete later.
- Read the large character total if the limit includes spaces. That is the usual editorial meaning of “characters.”
- Switch to “without spaces” only when the brief says to ignore whitespace. Line breaks are whitespace, so they leave that total too.
- If you are checking a storage limit or an API field, use UTF-8 bytes. If you are comparing with a programming language’s
length, use UTF-16 code units.
Three different things called “characters”
People say “character” and mean whatever their last tool displayed. This page splits the idea on purpose, instead of hiding it inside a word counter.
- Visible characters are Unicode graphemes. An accented letter that is stored as a base letter plus a combining mark still counts once. A typical emoji counts once. Spaces count.
- Characters without spaces use the same grapheme rules after whitespace is removed, including line breaks and tabs.
- UTF-16 code units are what JavaScript and many older APIs mean by string length. Emoji and some rare letters take two units. This number can be higher than the visible count.
- UTF-8 bytes are what files and a lot of databases store. English letters are one byte. An emoji is often four. A character limit and a byte limit are not interchangeable.
A meta description near 150–160 visible characters, an SMS segment near 160 GSM characters, and a 280-character social post are all “character” problems, and none of them is a word count. This page will not reproduce every product’s private exception for URLs. It will show you a count you can explain. If extra spaces are pushing you over a limit, remove extra spaces and count again. If the paste is full of line-end wraps, unwrap line breaks first, because those wraps are characters.
When a word count is the wrong tool
Assignments and articles are often specified in words. Ads, titles, excerpts, and form fields are often specified in characters. Mixing them up is how a 200-word blurb becomes a 1,200-character field overflow, or the reverse. The word counter is the right page for the first brief. Stay here for the second. Reading time does not care about spaces the way a database does; if you also need minutes, the word total on this page links through to reading time.
Limitations
- Grapheme segmentation follows the browser’s Unicode rules. A brand-new emoji or an unusual flag sequence can still be counted differently by a platform that has not updated.
- The page does not know if a URL will be wrapped or shortened by another product. Count the URL as it appears in the box.
- UTF-8 bytes are not the same as “GSM-7” SMS length. A single emoji can knock a message into a different SMS encoding. This page does not model carrier billing.
- Drafts over 500,000 UTF-16 code units are not analyzed, so the tab stays usable.
Questions people ask
Which character total should I compare with a limit?
Start with the main total if the limit includes spaces, which is the usual case for captions, titles, and meta descriptions. Use “without spaces” only when the instruction says so. If the limit is in bytes, or you are talking to a database, use the UTF-8 figure instead of the visible count.
Why is an emoji one character here and two somewhere else?
The main total counts grapheme clusters, the marks a person usually sees as one character. JavaScript’s string length counts UTF-16 code units, and many emoji take two of those. Both numbers are on the page so you can match the system that will enforce the limit.
Will this match the counter on a social network?
Not always. Networks have their own rules for URLs, mentions, and emoji. This page tells you how it counts and gives you the raw totals. It does not pretend to be the preview inside someone else’s product.
Do line breaks count?
Yes, in the main character total. They are whitespace, so they disappear from the “without spaces” total. If a PDF paste added a break in the middle of every line, remove line breaks before you trust a limit.
Is the text sent away to be counted?
No. The totals are computed in your browser. Nothing on this page posts the textarea to a server. The privacy policy covers the difference between that and the ordinary request for the page file.