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Character Counter Online

Count characters online instantly, with and without spaces. The counter also reports words, sentences, lines and paragraphs, the size of the text in bytes, and reading and speaking time, and updates as you type. It is free, needs no signup, and runs entirely in your browser, so nothing you paste is uploaded.

Your text 0 characters
Counts

Your result will appear here.

Not sure where to start? Use Load example.

Results update automatically and are calculated on your device. Nothing you type is sent to a server.

Runs in your browser. Processing happens entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to Delimiter.live.

How to use the Character Counter

  1. Paste or type your text into the input box.
  2. Read the character count with spaces and the count without spaces in the results panel.
  3. Check the secondary word, line, sentence and paragraph totals if you need them.
  4. Use Copy to put the summary on your clipboard, or Clear to start again.

Example

Input
Hello world
Output
Characters (with spaces): 11
Characters (no spaces): 10
Words: 2
Lines: 1

What counts as a character

Everything you can type counts, including the characters you cannot see.

  • Every space, tab and line break counts as one character. The no-spaces figure removes all of them, which is how some academic and word-processor limits work.
  • An accented letter counts once, whether it was typed as a single character or as a letter followed by a combining accent.
  • An emoji or a flag counts once in the main figure. The platform count reports it in UTF-16 units, where an emoji is two and a flag is four.
  • The size in bytes is the UTF-8 length: one byte for plain English letters, two for most accented letters, three for most Chinese and Japanese characters, and four for emoji. It is the figure that matters for a database column or an API limit measured in bytes.

Character limits people check most

Platform limits change, so these are the long-stable ones. The SEO and social media character limit tables linked from this page carry the full lists.

Where Limit Notes
SMS, plain text (GSM-7) 160 characters 153 per part when a longer message is split
SMS with any emoji (UCS-2) 70 characters 67 per part when split — one emoji more than halves the limit
Title tag in search results 50–60 characters Truncated by width, at about 600 px on desktop
Meta description 150–160 characters About 920 px on desktop, noticeably shorter on mobile
X post, free account 280 characters Every link counts as 23, whatever its real length

Common use cases

  • Fitting a post inside a platform limit such as an SMS segment, an ad headline or a meta description.
  • Checking that a form field, database column or API payload will accept the value.
  • Measuring homework, abstracts or applications that specify a character rather than word budget.
  • Comparing two versions of the same copy to see which is tighter.

Limitations and things to watch for

  • Characters are counted as the symbols you see, so an emoji, a flag or an accented letter is one character however it was built. Most platforms enforce limits in UTF-16 code units instead, where an emoji is two and a flag is four — the platform count shows that figure, and it is the one to check when a site rejects text the main count says fits.
  • Trailing whitespace is counted, because most systems that enforce a limit count it too.

Frequently asked questions

Does the character counter include spaces?
It reports both. The primary figure includes spaces because that is what most platforms count, and a second figure excludes all whitespace for word-processor style counts.
Is my text sent to a server?
No. The counting happens in JavaScript in your browser tab. Nothing is uploaded, logged or stored, and closing the tab discards the text.
How are emoji and accented letters counted?
As one character each. The counter counts the symbols you see, so é, 😀 and a country flag are one character apiece, however they were typed. The platform count (UTF-16) is shown alongside because that is how most platforms measure limits: there an emoji is two and a flag is four.
Is there a maximum length?
There is no imposed limit. Because everything runs locally, the practical ceiling is your device memory — several megabytes of text is fine.
What is the difference between characters and bytes?
A character is a letter, digit, space or symbol; a byte is the unit it is stored in. In UTF-8, plain English letters take one byte each, accented letters such as é take two, most Chinese and Japanese characters take three, and emoji take four. That is why a limit measured in bytes can reject text that looks short enough — the counter shows the UTF-8 size for exactly this check.
How many characters fit in one SMS?
160, if every character is in the GSM-7 alphabet — plain Latin letters, digits and common punctuation. A single emoji or other Unicode character switches the whole message to UCS-2, which fits only 70. Longer messages are split into parts of 153 or 67 characters, because each part carries a header.

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