This character counter tells you exactly how long your text is, both with and without spaces, the instant you type or paste it. Bars underneath compare the length with the limits you meet most often: a 280-character post on X, a 160-character meta description or SMS, a 60-character title tag, a 100-character YouTube title and a 2,200-character Instagram caption.
It also works out how many SMS messages a text will be split into, how many bytes it takes in UTF-8 and how many lines it has. Everything is counted in your browser, so drafts, passwords and private messages never leave your device.
How to use the Character Counter tool
- Type or paste your text into the box.
- Read the Characters and Characters (no spaces) counts at the top.
- Check the limit bars: a bar turns red when your text is longer than that limit.
- Look at the SMS line to see how many messages your text would be sent as.
- Copy your finished text with Copy text.
Why use ToolOrca Character Counter
- Counts with and without spaces
- Limit bars for X, SMS, SEO titles and Instagram
- SMS segment calculator (GSM-7 and Unicode)
- UTF-8 byte count for databases and APIs
- Emoji count as one character each
- Runs offline, nothing is uploaded
Character limits worth knowing
Search engines usually show around 150–160 characters of a meta description and 50–60 characters of a page title before cutting them off with an ellipsis. On X a standard post can have 280 characters, and links always count as 23 characters whatever their real length. Instagram captions stop at 2,200 characters, but only the first 125 or so are shown before “more”.
An SMS holds 160 characters when it uses only the basic GSM alphabet. A single emoji or a letter such as “ş” switches the whole message to Unicode, which cuts the limit to 70 characters, and long messages are split into parts of 153 or 67 characters.
Characters, letters and bytes are not the same
A character is anything you can type: letters, digits, spaces, punctuation and emoji. Letters are only the alphabetic part, so “Hi there!” has 9 characters but 7 letters. Bytes matter when text is stored: in UTF-8 an English letter takes 1 byte, an accented letter 2 bytes, and most emoji 4 bytes, which is why a database column limit can be reached sooner than you expect.
Frequently asked questions
Does the character count include spaces?
The main count includes spaces, line breaks and punctuation. The second count, Characters (no spaces), leaves out spaces, tabs and line breaks.
How are emoji counted?
Each emoji you see counts as one character here. Some platforms count them differently: X counts most emoji as 2 characters, and SMS switches to Unicode mode as soon as an emoji is added.
How many characters is a meta description?
Google does not have a fixed limit, but descriptions longer than about 155–160 characters are usually cut off in search results. Aim for 140–160 characters with the important words near the start.
Why does my SMS count as two messages?
A single SMS holds 160 GSM characters or 70 Unicode characters. Above that the text is split into parts of 153 or 67 characters. Characters such as € or { use two slots in GSM, and any emoji switches the message to Unicode.
Is my text stored anywhere?
No. The counting is done by JavaScript on this page. Nothing is sent to a server or saved after you close the tab.