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Text Tools · Updated October 19, 2026

Character Counter

You can count characters with and without spaces, words, sentences, lines, paragraphs and UTF-8 bytes as you type, and compare the total with common platform limits.

Runs in your browserFree · No sign-up · No watermark
TXTCOUNTSRuns in your browser
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Everything runs locally in this tab. No file is uploaded while the tool loads.

This tool runs in your tab. Nothing is uploaded and no copy is stored.

How files are handled

At a glance

Formats
TXT → COUNTS
Processing
In your browser
Max size
Device memory bound
Price
Free, no account
Updated
October 19, 2026
All Text Tools

About Character Counter

A character counter answers a specific question: will this text fit? Social posts, meta descriptions, SMS messages, form fields and database columns all impose limits, and the limit usually counts characters rather than words. This tool updates the totals as you type and shows them next to the limits people run into most often.

Characters are not the whole story. Emoji, accented letters and Chinese characters take more bytes than they take characters, so the UTF-8 byte count is shown separately for APIs and databases. The platform table is deliberately labeled approximate, because each service has its own weighting rules and truncation behavior.

What this tool does

The details that matter when you use Character Counter for real work.

  • Live character totals

    Characters with and without spaces update a moment after you stop typing, so you can trim a post without guessing.

  • Words, sentences, lines and paragraphs

    The same summary reports word, sentence, line and paragraph counts for copy limits that are not measured in characters.

  • UTF-8 byte size

    See how many bytes the text occupies when stored or sent, which is often several times the character count for non-English text.

  • Platform limit checks

    Rows for X, SMS, SEO titles, meta descriptions, YouTube titles, Instagram captions and LinkedIn posts show what is left or how far over you are.

  • Built for long documents

    Counting is debounced, so pasting an article or a long transcript does not make the text area feel sluggish.

  • Paste and clear in one click

    Paste inserts clipboard text at the cursor, and Clear resets every counter without reloading the page.

How to use Character Counter

No account, no installation — the whole job happens in this browser tab.
  1. 01

    Type or paste your text

    Click the text area and start typing, or press Paste to insert the contents of your clipboard at the cursor.

  2. 02

    Read the character totals

    Compare characters with spaces and characters without spaces; most forms and social platforms count spaces.

  3. 03

    Check words, lines and bytes

    Use the word, sentence, line, paragraph and UTF-8 byte totals when a limit is not measured in characters.

  4. 04

    Compare against a platform limit

    Find the row for the platform you are writing for and check how many characters remain before it truncates.

  5. 05

    Clear for the next draft

    Press Clear to empty the text and reset every counter before checking another piece of copy.

Supported formats and limits

Input
TXT
Output
COUNTS
Processing
Client-side, in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Maximum size
Bound by the memory available to your browser tab.
Requirements
Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari · JavaScript enabled

Limitations worth knowing

  • Platform limits are guidance rather than exact rules: X applies character weighting, and SMS switches encoding when a message contains emoji or non-GSM letters.
  • Counts use Unicode code points; grapheme clusters such as combined emoji and decomposed accents can differ from counters that count visible glyphs.
  • Very large pastes depend on device memory, so a multi-megabyte document may be slower to count on older mobile browsers.

Privacy and file handling

Your text stays in this browser tab. Counting, line splitting and byte measurement run locally with JavaScript, so nothing is uploaded, saved or logged, and closing the page clears everything.

Read the full privacy policy

Character Counter FAQ

Short, direct answers to the questions people ask before using this tool.
How does this character counter treat emoji and accented letters?
Each Unicode code point counts as one character, so a single emoji usually counts as one and a precomposed accented letter counts as one. Emoji built from several joined code points can count as more than one, which is why the UTF-8 byte total is shown as well.
Why is the UTF-8 byte count higher than the character count?
ASCII letters use one byte each, accented letters usually use two, and Chinese, Japanese or emoji characters use three or four. APIs, databases and SMS gateways often measure bytes, so the two numbers can differ substantially.
What does the SMS 160 limit mean when I include emoji?
A plain GSM-7 text message fits 160 characters. As soon as a message contains emoji or letters outside that alphabet it switches to a 70-character limit, and the total is counted differently again, so treat the SMS row as a rough guide.
Why is the platform limit table described as approximate?
Each service has its own rules. X weights some characters as two, search engines truncate at slightly different lengths, and social platforms may count URLs or line breaks specially. The table is a planning aid rather than a guarantee of what each platform will show.
Do line breaks count as characters here?
Yes. The characters with spaces total includes line breaks, and the characters without spaces total removes them along with every other whitespace character. Lines are counted separately by splitting on newline characters.
Where is my text sent when I use the character counter?
Nowhere. Counting, line splitting and UTF-8 byte measurement run in this browser tab with JavaScript, so the text is never uploaded, stored or logged. Closing the page discards it.
Can I count characters in a long document or book chapter?
Yes, within the memory of your browser. Counting waits for a short pause after typing and handles hundreds of thousands of characters comfortably; pasting several megabytes of text may be slower on older phones.

Background reading

Format guides that explain the trade-offs behind Character Counter.