Character Counter

Real-time Text Statistics and Analysis

This free online character counter provides instant analysis of your text. Count characters (with and without spaces), words, lines, paragraphs, and bytes in real-time. Perfect for writers checking word limits, developers analyzing text data, social media managers monitoring post lengths, and SEO professionals optimizing meta descriptions. Your text is processed entirely in your browser and never stored on our servers.

How to Use

Using the Character Counter is incredibly simple:

Enter or Paste Your Text
Type or paste your text into the text box below. The counter supports up to 100,000 characters and works with all languages including English, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, and emoji.
View Real-time Statistics
Statistics are automatically calculated and updated as you type. View character count (with/without spaces), word count, line count, paragraph count, and byte size simultaneously.
Adjust Counting Options
Use the checkbox options to customize counting behavior. Toggle whether to include spaces and newlines in the character count based on your specific requirements.

Your privacy is protected: All text analysis is performed locally in your browser. Your text is never uploaded to any server or stored anywhere.

Enter Your Text

Counting Options

Include spaces in character count

Include newlines in character count

📊 Statistics

Characters

Characters (no spaces)

Words

Lines

Paragraphs

Bytes (UTF-8)

Practical Use Cases

Character counting is essential in many professional and creative contexts:

Writing and Content Creation

Writers, bloggers, and content creators need to track word and character counts for articles, essays, blog posts, and manuscripts. Many publications have specific length requirements, and this tool helps ensure your content meets those guidelines. Track paragraph count to maintain good readability and structure.

Social Media Management

Every social media platform has character limits: Twitter/X (280 characters), Instagram captions (2,200 characters), LinkedIn posts (3,000 characters), and Facebook posts (63,206 characters). This tool helps you maximize your message while staying within platform limits. Perfect for crafting engaging posts that fit perfectly.

SEO and Meta Descriptions

Search Engine Optimization requires precise control of meta description length. Google typically displays 155-160 characters in search results. Use this tool to craft compelling meta descriptions that are neither too short to be effective nor too long to be truncated. Every character counts for SEO success.

Translation and Localization

Professional translators need to match source text length, especially for UI strings, subtitles, and advertising copy. Character counting helps ensure translations fit allocated space in interfaces and layouts. Byte counting is crucial when working with character encoding limitations.

Programming and Development

Developers use character counting for validating input length, checking string sizes before database insertion, analyzing log files, and ensuring API payload sizes. Byte counting is essential for network transmission calculations and storage optimization. Perfect for validating user input forms.

Understanding Text Metrics

Character counting analyzes text to provide various statistical metrics. Different metrics serve different purposes, from simple character counts to complex analysis of text structure and size.

Available Metrics

Characters - Total count of all characters in the text, including letters, numbers, punctuation, spaces, and special characters. This is the most common metric for social media and text message limits.
Words - Number of words in the text, determined by splitting on whitespace. Useful for essays, articles, and content requirements that specify word count rather than character count.
Lines - Number of line breaks in the text. Important for formatting poetry, code, scripts, and any content where line structure matters.
Paragraphs - Text blocks separated by empty lines. Paragraph count helps assess content structure and readability. Good content typically has well-balanced paragraph distribution.
Bytes (UTF-8) - Storage size of the text in bytes using UTF-8 encoding. Important for database design, network transmission, and storage calculations. ASCII characters use 1 byte, while emoji and some international characters may use 2-4 bytes.

Unicode and Multilingual Support

This tool fully supports Unicode characters including emoji, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic, and all other scripts. Complex emoji (like skin tone modifiers) are counted accurately as single characters.

Common Character Limits

Different platforms and use cases have specific character or length requirements. Here are some important limits to know:

Platform / Use Case	Character Limit
Twitter/X Post	280
Facebook Post	63,206
Instagram Caption	2,200
LinkedIn Post	3,000
SEO Meta Description	155-160
SMS Message	160

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between characters and bytes?

Characters are individual symbols (letters, numbers, emoji), while bytes measure storage size. In ASCII, one character = one byte. However, in UTF-8 encoding, emoji and many international characters use 2-4 bytes. For example, "A" is 1 byte, but "😀" is 4 bytes.

How are words counted?

Words are counted by splitting text on whitespace (spaces, tabs, newlines). Consecutive spaces are treated as a single separator. Punctuation attached to words (like "hello,") counts as one word. This method works well for most languages that use spaces, though languages like Chinese and Japanese may show different results.

Does this tool count emoji as one character?

Yes, standard emoji are counted as one character each, matching how platforms like Twitter/X count them. Complex emoji with modifiers (like skin tones) are also counted correctly. However, note that emoji take 2-4 bytes in UTF-8 encoding.

Why do spaces affect character count?

Different platforms count spaces differently. Twitter/X and most social media include spaces in their limits. Use the "Include spaces" option to match the counting method of your target platform. For pure text analysis, you might want to exclude spaces.

What are paragraphs in this context?

Paragraphs are defined as text blocks separated by one or more blank lines. A blank line contains only whitespace or nothing at all. This definition matches common writing conventions and helps analyze content structure.

Is my text stored or sent to a server?

No. All character counting and analysis happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your text never leaves your device, is never uploaded to any server, and is never stored anywhere. This ensures complete privacy and security for sensitive content.