Text Character counter
Count characters with and without spaces as you type, and see live progress against SMS, X, meta description and title tag limits.
Characters
0
Remaining
280
- Without spaces
- 0
- Words
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
Against common limits
- SMS (single message)0 / 160
- X / Twitter post0 / 280
- Meta description0 / 160
- Title tag0 / 60
- Instagram caption0 / 2,200
- LinkedIn post0 / 3,000
Ready. Runs locally on your device.
Your files stay on your device. The tool works directly in your browser, using your device to process your files. Nothing is sent to our servers, and we never receive, store, or see your files or figures.
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Reembun. (2026, July 27). Character counter. https://reembun.com/character-counter
How to use it
Type or paste the text
Counting starts at the first character. There is nothing to press.
Read both character counts
With spaces and without spaces are shown separately, because different platforms count differently.
Check it against your limit
Useful when a field caps you at 160 characters for an SMS, 280 for a post, or 60 for a page title.
Copy the text back out
Copy text takes the whole box, so you can edit here and paste the trimmed version where it belongs.
Characters with and without spaces
Almost every platform that enforces a limit counts spaces. So does this tool by default. The no-spaces figure is provided separately because a few contexts exclude them, including translation billing by character and some coursework requirements.
Line breaks count as characters too. A double line break between paragraphs is 2 characters on most platforms, and SMS gateways generally count it the same way.
The limits that matter
| Where | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| SMS, single segment | 160 | Drops to 70 if any non-GSM character appears |
| X / Twitter post | 280 | Links always count as 23, whatever their length |
| Meta description | ~155-160 | Truncation is by pixel width, not characters |
| Title tag | ~60 | Roughly 580px on desktop |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | Only the first ~125 show before “more” |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | Truncated at ~210 in the feed |
| YouTube title | 100 | Truncated in search at ~70 |
| Google Ads headline | 30 | Per headline, three headlines allowed |
Why grapheme counting matters
Three ways to count the same text give three answers:
| Text | UTF-16 units | Graphemes | UTF-8 bytes |
|---|---|---|---|
hello | 5 | 5 | 5 |
café (composed) | 4 | 4 | 5 |
café (decomposed) | 5 | 4 | 6 |
🎉 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
👨👩👧 | 8 | 1 | 18 |
The two versions of “café” look identical on screen but differ in storage, depending on whether the accent is a single code point or an e followed by a combining mark. This tool reports graphemes, the visible characters. If you are checking a database column limit, the UTF-8 byte count is the one you want instead, and it can be several times larger.
The GSM-7 trap
A standard SMS carries 160 characters using the GSM-7 alphabet: Latin letters, digits, basic punctuation and a handful of symbols. Introduce one character outside it, such as an emoji, a curly apostrophe pasted from a word processor, or a Cyrillic or Arabic letter, and the message re-encodes as UCS-2, cutting the limit to 70.
This is why a message that looks like it fits gets billed as three. The usual culprit is a smart quote that arrived silently through copy-paste. Typing an apostrophe directly avoids it.
Setting your own limit
The custom limit field takes any number and shows the remaining count, turning red once you pass it. It is there for the limits not on the list above: a form field, an API constraint, an editorial house style.
Common questions
Why does my emoji count as one character here but two elsewhere?
JavaScript strings are stored as UTF-16, where characters outside the basic range take two units. A naive length check reports 2 for a single emoji, and 7 or more for a family emoji built from several joined parts. This counter segments by grapheme, giving the number a person would count. Platforms differ: X counts most emoji as 2.
Do the SMS limits account for special characters?
The 160-character limit applies to the GSM-7 alphabet. A single non-GSM character, whether an emoji, curly quotes, or most non-Latin scripts, switches the whole message to UCS-2 encoding and drops the limit to 70 characters per segment. If you are billed per message, check that before sending.
What is the real limit for a meta description?
Google truncates by pixel width, not character count, so there is no exact number. Around 155-160 characters is the practical ceiling for desktop and roughly 120 for mobile. Google also rewrites descriptions for the majority of results, so treat the limit as a guide for the version you control.
Are spaces counted?
Both figures are shown. The main count includes spaces, which is what social platforms, SMS gateways and most form validations measure. The count without spaces is shown separately, since some academic and translation contexts use it.
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