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Character Counter Online

Track character count in real time. See totals with and without spaces, plus common platform limits.

Word Counter

Use this tool directly in your browser — no signup required.

Use Word Counter

100% private — files are processed locally and never uploaded.

How to Character Counter Online

  1. 1

    Type or paste your text

    Enter the content you need to check against a character limit.

  2. 2

    Check the character count

    The counter updates live, showing characters with spaces, without spaces, and how close you are to common limits (280, 160, etc.).

  3. 3

    Trim to fit

    Edit your text directly in the tool until you hit your target character count.

Character Limits Are Everywhere

Twitter/X gives you 280 characters. A meta description should be under 160 characters or Google truncates it. SMS messages split at 160 characters (and each segment costs money for business SMS). Google Ads headlines max out at 30 characters. App store descriptions, push notifications, email subject lines — everything has a limit.

Characters and bytes aren't the same thing. An emoji can be 4 bytes. An accented character like e with acute might be 1 or 2 bytes depending on encoding. Most platforms count Unicode code points (what you'd intuitively call "characters"), but some older systems count bytes. This tool counts characters as code points, which matches how Twitter, Google, and most modern platforms count.

Spaces are characters too, but some limits exclude them. Academic submissions sometimes specify "characters excluding spaces." This tool shows both counts so you can match whichever standard applies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do emojis count as one character?

It depends on the emoji. Simple emojis (like a smiley face) are one Unicode code point. Compound emojis (like a family emoji or flag) can be 7+ code points joined by zero-width joiners. Twitter counts most emojis as 2 characters regardless of their actual code point length.

What's the character limit for SEO meta descriptions?

Google typically displays up to 155-160 characters of a meta description. Anything beyond that gets cut off with an ellipsis. For best results, keep descriptions under 155 characters and front-load the important information.

Are newlines counted as characters?

Yes. A newline is a character (specifically, a line feed character). It's included in the "with spaces" count. Most platforms count it as one character, though some (like older Windows systems) use two characters for a line break (carriage return + line feed).