Character & Word Counter
Paste or type text and see the counts update instantly. Your text is processed locally in your browser.
Nothing you type or paste is sent to Docspira.
How the counts work
Characters use Unicode grapheme clusters, so emoji and combined characters count the way they appear. “Without spaces” excludes Unicode whitespace, including spaces, tabs and line breaks. Words use locale-aware browser segmentation, and bytes are the UTF-8 encoded size.
What this tool does
Count characters, words, lines, and UTF-8 bytes as you write.
Why three different counts?
"How many characters" has more than one honest answer, and the right one depends on where the text is going. The counter shows all three so you can pick the one your limit uses.
| Text | Characters (what you see) | JavaScript .length |
UTF-8 bytes |
|---|---|---|---|
hello |
5 | 5 | 5 |
café |
4 | 4 | 5 |
São Paulo |
9 | 9 | 10 |
日本 |
2 | 2 | 6 |
😀 |
1 | 2 | 4 |
👍🏽 (emoji with skin tone) |
1 | 4 | 8 |
🇧🇷 (flag) |
1 | 4 | 8 |
👨👩👧 (family emoji) |
1 | 8 | 18 |
Every value in this table was measured with the same browser APIs this counter uses.
- Characters counts what a person sees as one character (Unicode "grapheme clusters"). This is what most people mean, and what the counter shows first.
- JavaScript
.lengthcounts UTF-16 code units. It's not shown by the counter, but it's why a form built in JavaScript may reject text the counter says fits: an emoji can use 2 to 8 of those units. - UTF-8 bytes is the storage size. Accented letters use 2 bytes, most Asian scripts 3, emoji 4 or more. Byte limits appear in APIs, database indexes, SMS gateways and file formats.
Common character limits
Platforms change their limits from time to time, so treat these as a starting point and check the platform if you're right at the edge.
| Where | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 | Emoji and CJK characters count as 2; links count as 23 |
| SMS, plain text | 160 | Drops to 70 per message as soon as the text contains an emoji or a character outside the GSM alphabet |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | |
| Instagram bio | 150 | |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | |
| YouTube title | 100 | |
| YouTube description | 5,000 | |
| Google search title | about 60 | Google truncates by pixel width, not an exact count |
| Google meta description | about 155 to 160 | Same: pixel width, so treat it as a guideline |
The SMS row is the one that surprises people: a 150-character message with one emoji is sent as three messages, not one.
How words and lines are counted
Words are counted with the browser's own language-aware word segmentation, not by splitting on spaces. That means:
| Text | Words |
|---|---|
don't stop |
2 |
e-mail address |
3 (the hyphen splits e and mail) |
3.14 is pi |
3 |
well—done |
2 |
日本語のテキスト |
3 (Japanese has no spaces; the segmenter still finds word boundaries) |
Word counts can differ by a few percent from Word or Google Docs, which use their own rules for hyphens, numbers and URLs. If an essay limit is strict, check in the tool your teacher or editor uses.
Lines count every line break, including empty lines. Windows (\r\n) and Unix (\n) line breaks each count as one.
Without spaces removes every kind of whitespace, including tabs and line breaks, not just the space bar.
FAQ
Is my text saved or sent anywhere?
No. Counting happens in your browser as you type. Nothing is uploaded, logged or stored, so it's safe for drafts, private messages and unpublished work.
Does it count spaces?
Yes, in the main character count. The "without spaces" count excludes spaces, tabs and line breaks.
Why does another counter give a different number for the same text?
Usually emoji or accented text. A counter that uses JavaScript's .length counts 👍🏽 as 4, and one that counts bytes counts it as 8. This counter shows the visible count, which is 1.
How many characters can a database column hold?
It depends on the database. MySQL VARCHAR(255) with utf8mb4 and PostgreSQL VARCHAR(255) both count characters, not bytes, but indexes and some older MySQL setups have byte limits. Use the UTF-8 bytes figure when a limit is described in bytes.
Can I count characters in a PDF or Word file?
Copy the text out of the document and paste it here. The counter works on plain text only.
Before you start
The byte count can differ from the character count for emoji and accented text, which matters for APIs and field limits.
Privacy
This tool runs in your browser; the text or file you choose is not uploaded for processing. Read the privacy details.