Character Counter
Characters with and without spaces, live, against any limit you need to hit.
Emoji and accented letters count as one character each, the same way a post box counts them. Your text stays in your browser.
Almost every box you type into has a limit, and almost none of them tell you the limit until you are already over it. A meta description gets cut at about 160. A text message splits at 160. A post stops at 280.
This counts as you type, with and without spaces, because the two numbers are different and different forms want different ones. Pick the limit you are writing against and the bar shows how much room is left, turning amber as you approach it and red once you are past.
Underneath it counts words, sentences, paragraphs and lines, and estimates how long the text takes to read and to say out loud. Emoji and accented letters count as one character each, the way a real form counts them rather than the way JavaScript stores them.
How everything is counted
Characters are counted as Unicode code points, which is how most form fields count them, so an accented letter or a simple emoji is one character. The without-spaces figure removes every space, tab and line break first.
Words are runs of text separated by whitespace, and sentences are runs that end in a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. Reading time assumes 238 words a minute, the average silent reading speed for non-fiction found in a 2019 review of reading research, and speaking time assumes 130 words a minute, a comfortable pace for a talk.
A worked example
A 1,200 word blog post takes about 5 minutes to read and a little over 9 minutes to say out loud. A 155 character meta description sits just under the 160 guide, and the same text sent as a text message fits in one SMS, as long as it uses only standard characters.
Where the count and the platform can disagree
Text messages can drop to 70 characters. A single SMS holds 160 characters from the standard GSM alphabet, but one emoji or other special character switches the whole message to an encoding with a limit of 70.
X counts some characters double. Links count as 23 characters however long they are, and emoji and characters from Chinese, Japanese and Korean count as two. A post that shows 280 here may not fit there.
Some emoji are several characters. A flag, a skin tone variant or a family emoji is built from more than one code point, so this counter, like many forms, counts it as two or more.
Meta descriptions have no fixed character limit. Google shortens them by display width, so 160 characters is a guide rather than a rule.
The counting is quick. The writing is the part that takes the hour.
If you are trimming a description to fit, you are mid task and probably mid procrastination. PomoTodo runs a focus timer against the thing you are actually writing and keeps a record of how long it really took.
Free plan tracks unlimited focus time across unlimited tasks. No card required.
More tools
A month on one grid, with streaks. Print it if you prefer paper.
Sort tasks by urgent and important. Do, schedule, delegate, delete.
Build a project timeline and print it. No account needed.
How long between two times, including overnight spans.
Questions
How do I count characters in a piece of text?
Paste or type it into the box. The count updates on every keystroke and is shown both with spaces and without, since forms and style guides disagree about which one they mean.
Do spaces count as characters?
Usually yes. Social posts, text messages and most form fields count spaces. Some academic and print limits do not, which is why both numbers are always displayed.
How many characters is a text message or a post?
A single SMS is 160 characters before it splits into two, and a post on X allows 280. A meta description is cut somewhere around 160 and a page title around 60. All of these are one tap away above.
How are emoji counted?
Most count as one character. Behind the scenes many emoji take two units of storage, and counters that ignore this report a number nobody recognises. The exceptions are emoji built from several pieces, such as flags and skin tone variants, which count as two or more.