Character counter
Paste text and every count updates live. Characters are counted the way humans see them (grapheme clusters), so 👍 and 👨👩👧 are one each. The technical counts developers need — code points, UTF-16 units (JavaScript length) and UTF-8 bytes — are shown separately and labeled.
Technical details — what was counted
| Graphemes — visible characters | 0 |
| Unicode code points — Python len() | 0 |
| UTF-16 code units — JavaScript .length | 0 |
| UTF-8 bytes — web, DB, payloads | 0 |
| Korean SMS (EUC-KR-style) bytes, approx. | 0 |
| Whitespace (spaces, line breaks, tabs) | 0 |
| Hangul syllables | 0 |
| Reading time (230 wpm) | 0 |
| Reading time, Korean (500 syllables/min) | 0 |
Limits by platform (live)
| Platform | Limit | Now | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 weighted | 0 | |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | 0 | |
| YouTube title | 100 | 0 | |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | 0 | |
| Meta description (soft) | 120–160 | 0 | |
| Title tag (soft) | 30–60 | 0 | |
| SMS (GSM-7 / UCS-2) | 160 / 70 per msg | 0 | |
| Korean SMS / LMS bytes | 90 / 2,000 | 0 |
Which number do I need?
- Essays, forms: characters or words (check if spaces count). → word counter
- Social posts: platform rules differ — X weights CJK and emoji as 2. → limits by platform
- Databases, APIs, SMS: bytes or encoding units. → UTF-8 byte counter, SMS (GSM-7)
Why do counters disagree?
JavaScript '👍'.length is 2 because it counts UTF-16 units. The family emoji 👨👩👧 is 5 code points, 8 UTF-16 units and 18 UTF-8 bytes, but one visible character. This tool shows all of them side by side so you can match whatever the target system uses. More on emoji counts.
Privacy
Counting runs in your browser. Text is never sent to a server; it is kept only in this browser's localStorage so it survives a reload. ‘Clear’ removes it.
FAQ
Does the character count include spaces?
Both are shown: with spaces and without. Spaces, tabs and line breaks all count as whitespace.
How are emoji counted?
As one character per visible emoji (Intl.Segmenter grapheme clusters). Code points, UTF-16 units and bytes are shown separately.
Is my text uploaded?
No. Everything runs locally; the text stays in this browser's localStorage until you clear it.
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