Character Counter

With/without spaces, words, lines, sentences, bytes — plus social media limits, in real time.

Your text

Characters (with spaces)

chars

Without spaces

Words

Sentences

Lines

Bytes (UTF-8)

Latin letters

Digits

CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean)

Other / symbols

Social Media & Cover Letter Limits

See how your current character count (with spaces) tracks against each platform's limit. Limits as of 2026-05.

Characters vs Bytes — UTF-8 Encoding

Example	Characters	UTF-8 Bytes	Notes
Hi	2	2	ASCII = 1 byte each
café	4	5	é = 2 bytes
안녕	2	6	Hangul = 3 bytes each
你好	2	6	CJK ideograph = 3 bytes each
👋	1	4	Emoji = 4 bytes (surrogate pair)
Hello 안녕	8 (with space)	13	Mixed

This counter uses UTF-8. Some legacy systems use UTF-16 (Java strings, JavaScript .length) where most characters are 2 bytes and some emoji are 4 bytes — values may differ. When in doubt, follow the platform's documentation.

Common Limits at a Glance

Platform	Limit (chars)	Notes
Twitter / X	280	25,000 for Premium accounts; URLs counted as 23
Threads	500	Per post
Bluesky	300	Per post
Mastodon	500	Default; varies by instance
Instagram caption	2,200	Up to 30 hashtags
Instagram bio	150
LinkedIn post	3,000	"…see more" after ~140
LinkedIn headline	220
Facebook post	63,206	"See more" after ~477
YouTube title	100
YouTube description	5,000	First ~150 visible without expand
TikTok caption	2,200	Per video
SMS (1 segment)	160 GSM-7 / 70 UCS-2	UCS-2 used when any non-ASCII present
Email subject (best practice)	50–60	Mobile clients truncate longer subjects

⚠️ Platform limits change. Verify on the official help page before publishing high-stakes content.

Related Tools

Counting rules

When to use it

Korean public-sector appsFields cap at 500 / 800 / 1,000 / 1,500 / 2,000 characters. Toggle space-inclusive / exclusive counts to match each posting.

Instagram · X captionsInstagram 2,200 / X 280 / Threads 500 — live progress bars. Color changes near the cap.

SMS · MMS · DB columnsSMS 90 byte (EUC-KR) / 140 byte (UTF-8) / MMS 2,000 byte. UTF-8 = Korean 3 bytes / EUC-KR = Korean 2 bytes — auto count.

Blog · SEOCompare against SEO-friendly lengths (1,500–3,000) with line / sentence / word counts.

API field validationVARCHAR(50) / TEXT-column compatibility. UTF-8 byte counts for DB storage.

YouTube · TwitchYouTube comment 10,000 / live chat 200 char limits. Emojis counted separately.

Unicode rules (emoji, CJK, ZWJ-joined)

Counts in Unicode codepoints. CJK characters (漢 / あ) and standalone emoji (👋) count as 1 each. ZWJ-joined family emoji (👨‍👩‍👧 = 5 codepoints) is counted as 5 here — X (Twitter) counts it as 1, so platform-specific behavior may differ.

Korean is also counted by codepoint. A precomposed (NFC) syllable like "각" is 1 character, but decomposed (NFD) text — common when copying from macOS Finder — splits each syllable into separate jamo codepoints (ㄱ·ㅏ·ㄱ), so one syllable may count as 2-3. No normalization is applied, so if the count looks higher than expected, your input may be NFD-decomposed — retype it or paste a precomposed version for an accurate count.

Common pitfalls

Space-inclusive vs exclusive — follow the exact wording of the posting. Inclusive counts line breaks; Word / HWP statistics typically don't.
UTF-8 vs EUC-KR bytes — Korean public sector / finance often uses EUC-KR. Korean = 2 bytes (EUC-KR) vs 3 bytes (UTF-8) — risk of being under or over.
ZWJ emoji — multi-codepoint here vs single-char on X. Verify on the target platform.
Korean-mode mis-typed — see also the Korean keyboard converter.

Supported limits (11)

Instagram caption (2,200) · Instagram comment (2,200) · X (280) · Threads (500) · Facebook (63,206) · KakaoTalk (1,000) · LinkedIn (3,000) · KR public-sector cover letter (1,000) · KR corporate cover letter (1,500) · self-intro (2,000) · personal statement (3,000).

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between counting with and without spaces?

With spaces counts every space, tab, and newline as one character. Without spaces excludes all whitespace. Most social platforms (Twitter/X, Instagram, etc.) count with spaces. Cover letters and personal statements vary — always follow the employer's published guideline.

Why is the byte count larger than the character count?

In UTF-8: ASCII letters and digits = 1 byte, accented Latin (é, ü, ñ) = 2 bytes, most CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) = 3 bytes, emoji often = 4 bytes. So Hi is 2 chars / 2 bytes, but 안녕 or 你好 is 2 chars / 6 bytes. Database VARCHAR columns and SMS limits often constrain bytes rather than characters.

How are emoji and CJK characters counted?

This counter uses Unicode codepoint counting. Compound emoji like 👨‍👩‍👧 (joined with ZWJ) count as multiple codepoints (typically 5), which can differ from how Twitter/X displays them as 1 "character". CJK letters (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) each count as 1 character — same as Latin letters.

Are line breaks included in the count?

Yes, in the "with spaces" count (the newline character \n is 1 character). They're excluded from "without spaces". This may differ slightly from Microsoft Word's character statistics, which typically excludes line breaks from its "characters" total.

How do I know if my Twitter/X post will fit?

Twitter/X allows 280 characters (25,000 for Premium). URLs are auto-shortened to 23 characters regardless of original length, but this counter shows the raw character count — subtract the URL difference manually if you have long URLs. Emoji typically count as 1–2 characters on X.

Is my text uploaded anywhere?

No. All counting happens in your browser via JavaScript. Your text never leaves your device. Cover letters, drafts, and confidential content are safe to paste.

References

Last reviewed: 2026-05-10 · Platform limits per official help pages.

UTF-8 encoding spec — RFC 3629
Unicode Hangul Syllables block (가-힣, U+AC00–U+D7A3) — Unicode standard
Twitter/X 280 chars — X Help
Instagram caption 2,200 chars — Instagram Help
LinkedIn post 3,000 chars — LinkedIn Help

⚠️ Each platform's limit can change. Verify on the official help page before publishing.