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Character Counter
See characters, characters without spaces, bytes and reading time update on every keystroke.
Live count
- Characters
- 130
- Without spaces
- 108
- Words
- 23
- Sentences
- 2
- Lines
- 1
- Paragraphs
- 1
- Size
- 130 B
- Reading time
- 1 min
Emoji and accented characters are counted as single characters. Size is the UTF-8 byte length, which is what most databases and message limits actually measure.
Nothing is uploaded
Everything runs in your browser. Your text never reaches a server.
Up to 100,000 repeats
Ten times the usual ceiling, and it stays responsive at the top end.
Any language, any emoji
Full Unicode support, with emoji counted as single characters.
Copy or download
One click to the clipboard, or save the whole result as a .txt file.
This character counter tells you how much room your text takes up. As you type or paste, it reports total characters, characters excluding spaces, words, lines, sentences, paragraphs, the size in bytes and an estimated reading time. Nothing is submitted and nothing is saved; the figures are recalculated inside the page on every keystroke.
Character limits turn up everywhere: a text message that splits in two, a meta description cut off in search results, a database column that silently truncates a customer name, a bio field that stops accepting input mid-word. Knowing the exact number before you paste saves you from discovering the ceiling the hard way.
Three steps
How to use the character counter
- 1
Paste or type
The counters update on every change, so you can watch a figure fall as you trim. Editing directly in the box is usually faster than cutting text down somewhere else and pasting it back to check.
- 2
Read the number that matters
Total characters covers most platform caps. Characters without spaces suits typesetting briefs and some academic limits. Byte size is the one to watch for SMS segments and older database columns.
- 3
Trim and copy
Cut until the figure sits under your limit, then copy the finished text. Nothing leaves the page, so you can safely measure drafts, customer records or private notes.
Limits worth measuring against
Most caps are defined in characters, but they are not defined the same way. Some count code points, some count bytes, and a few say characters while quietly meaning something narrower. When a field rejects text that looks short enough, the mismatch is almost always between the unit you counted and the unit the system counts.
- SMS: 160 characters in the GSM-7 alphabet, or 70 once any character forces the message into Unicode.
- Concatenated SMS: 153 characters per part in GSM-7, because each segment carries a small header.
- Meta description: roughly 155 to 160 characters before search engines start truncating the snippet.
- Title tag: around 60 characters, though the real cut-off is measured in pixels rather than letters.
- Database fields: VARCHAR(255) is a common default, and older schemas may count bytes, not characters.
Why bytes and characters disagree
Text on the web is almost always stored as UTF-8. In that encoding an ASCII letter takes one byte, most accented Latin and Greek letters take two, most Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters take three, and emoji take four. So a message of 100 plain letters weighs 100 bytes, while 100 emoji weigh 400.
That gap explains a lot of confusing errors. A form that accepts 255 bytes will refuse a 200-character name written in Cyrillic. An SMS drops from 160 characters to 70 as soon as one curly quote or one emoji appears. Checking the byte figure alongside the character figure tells you which ceiling you are actually near.
How each figure is worked out
Characters are counted using grapheme segmentation, which groups the code points that combine into one visible symbol. A flag emoji, a family emoji or a letter with a separate accent mark therefore counts as one character here, matching what you see on screen rather than what the underlying data contains. Byte size is shown separately for exactly that reason.
Characters excluding spaces removes every space, tab and line break. Lines are counted by line break, so a wrapped paragraph is one line. Sentences are split on full stops, question marks and exclamation marks, and paragraphs on blank lines. Reading time is an estimate based on an average silent reading speed, not a measurement of your own pace.
Frequently asked questions
Does the counter include spaces?
The main total does, because nearly every platform limit counts a space as a character. A second figure shows the count with all spaces, tabs and line breaks removed, which is the number some style guides and typesetting briefs ask for. Both update together as you edit.
How are emoji counted?
As one character each, using grapheme segmentation. A skin-tone emoji or a flag built from two regional indicators still reads as a single character, matching what you see. The byte figure tells the other half of the story: most emoji occupy four bytes in UTF-8.
Why does my SMS split when it is under 160 characters?
Because one character pushed the whole message out of the GSM-7 alphabet into Unicode, where the limit drops to 70. Curly quotation marks pasted from a word processor are the usual culprit, along with emoji, em dashes and accented letters. Replacing them often restores the higher limit.
Is the text I paste stored anywhere?
No. The counting runs in your browser and the page never sends your text anywhere. There is no account, no history and no server-side processing, so you can measure customer records, unpublished copy or private notes without them leaving the device you are on.
What counts as a line?
A line ends where a line break does. Text that simply wraps on screen because the box is narrow is still a single line. If you paste a list where each item sits on its own row, the line count matches the number of items, which makes it a quick way to count rows.
How accurate is the reading time?
It is a rough guide. The estimate divides the word count by a typical silent reading speed for adults reading prose in their first language. Technical material, tables and text in a second language all read more slowly, so treat the figure as a floor rather than a promise.
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Browse all toolsLast updated 23 August 2026