Character Counter
Built for writing to a limit. Pick a preset or set your own, and watch the counter turn amber then red as you approach it.
How to use the Character Counter
- Choose a preset limit, or type your own number.
- Write or paste your text. The bar under the box shows how many characters remain.
- Use Trim to limit to cut the text down instantly, then edit for sense.
Characters, code points and bytes
These three counts diverge, and knowing which one a system enforces matters.
An emoji like 👍 is one visible character. In UTF-16 — which JavaScript, Java and Windows use internally — it occupies two units. In UTF-8, the encoding of the web and most databases, it takes four bytes. A flag emoji or one with a skin-tone modifier can consume considerably more.
This tool counts visible characters by Unicode code point, which matches what a person sees and what most social platforms enforce. The UTF-8 size is shown separately because database columns and API limits are usually specified in bytes.
The SMS 160-character rule
A single SMS holds 160 characters in the GSM 7-bit alphabet. Include one character outside that alphabet — an emoji, a curly quote, an accented letter, or the € sign — and the whole message switches to UCS-2 encoding, cutting the limit to 70 characters.
Longer messages are split and reassembled, but the segments carry a header that reduces capacity to 153 characters each (67 for UCS-2). This is why a 161-character message can cost double to send. Watch for smart quotes pasted from a word processor — they are the most common accidental trigger.
Frequently asked questions
Do spaces count towards the limit?
Almost always, yes. Every platform and database in the presets above counts spaces. The "no spaces" figure is provided for the rare cases that do not.
Why is my meta description still cut off at 155?
Search engines truncate on pixel width, not character count, so wide letters take more room. 155 is a safe guideline rather than a hard rule — front-load the important words.
How does it count line breaks?
Each newline counts as one character. Many platforms count them too, so a heavily formatted post uses more of its budget than it appears to.
Does trimming break emoji?
No. Trimming works on code points rather than raw units, so a multi-byte character is never cut in half.
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