Character Counter

The Character Counter tracks four numbers as you type: total characters, characters excluding spaces, words, and the estimated size of your text in bytes. All four update live, so you can watch a caption shrink toward a platform limit as you trim it.

The byte estimate matters when a system limits data size rather than character count — form fields, database columns, and SMS gateways often do. Plain English letters take one byte each, but accented characters and emoji take more, which is why 100 characters of text can be well over 100 bytes.

Like every tool on this site, it runs entirely in your browser. Your text never leaves your device.

Character limits are everywhere and they are strict: 280 characters for a post on X (Twitter), 160 for a single SMS segment, roughly 60 characters before Google truncates a page title, and about 160 for a meta description. Go over by even one character and the platform cuts you off mid-word.

The 'without spaces' count exists because industries disagree on what to count. Translation and transcription work is often billed per character excluding spaces, while social networks count spaces. Having both visible saves you from doing the subtraction yourself.

It's also handy for form validation work: if you're testing a field that allows 255 characters, you can build a test string here and know its exact length before pasting it in.

1. Type or paste your text into the input box.

2. Watch the four counters — Characters, No Spaces, Words, and Est. Bytes — update as you type.

3. Edit the text in place until it fits your target limit.

4. Copy the finished text back to wherever it needs to go.

Input:

Launch day is here! 🚀

Output:

Characters: 22 · No Spaces: 18 · Words: 5 — the rocket emoji counts as 2 characters because of how text encoding works.