Character counter
Type or paste text to count characters, words and lines as you go. Emoji and accented letters count the way you see them.
- Characters
- 0
- Without spaces
- 0
- Words
- 0
- Lines
- 0
- Spaces
- 0
For developers
- Code points
- 0
- UTF-16 units
- 0
- UTF-8 bytes
- 0
App limits
Only limits we read on each platform’s own help page, with the date we checked. Bars use the character count above.
How the counter works
- Type or paste text in the box. The numbers update as you type; nothing is sent anywhere or saved.
- Characters counts what you see: 😀 is one, é is one, and a family emoji 👨👩👧 is one. Without spaces leaves out spaces, tabs and line breaks.
- Check the bars under App limits before you paste a bio or a name into an app.
Why apps count characters differently
A “character” can mean three different things. What you see is a grapheme: one letter, one emoji, one accented letter. Underneath, the text is a list of Unicode code points: é can be one code point or two (e plus a combining accent), and a family emoji is five code points glued with invisible joiners.
Many apps are built on JavaScript or Java, which count UTF-16 units. In UTF-16, every emoji outside the oldest range takes two units, so 😀 counts as 2 and 👨👩👧 as 8. Databases and SMS often count bytes: in UTF-8, a Latin letter is 1 byte, a Cyrillic letter 2, a Chinese character 3 and an emoji 4.
That is why a bio can fit in one app and be “too long” in another. When the numbers on this page differ, emoji, rare symbols or fancy text are the reason: mathematical bold letters are two UTF-16 units each. Hidden characters count too; the invisible character checker finds them.
Example: “Café 😀” is 6 characters, 6 code points, 7 UTF-16 units and 10 UTF-8 bytes (with é stored as one code point).
Questions people ask
How do I count the characters in a text?
Paste the text into the box at the top. The first number is the character count as you see it; the others give words, lines and the technical counts.
Are spaces counted as characters?
Yes, most limits count spaces. If you need the count without them, read the second number, Without spaces.
How many characters is an emoji?
One as you see it, but apps that count UTF-16 units see 2 for most emoji and up to 11 or more for emoji sequences such as families or flags with skin tones. The bars show both when they differ.
How are words counted?
With your browser’s built-in word splitter for the page language, which also handles languages written without spaces, such as Japanese. Numbers count as words, punctuation does not.
What is the character limit for an Instagram bio?
Instagram’s help centre says a bio can have up to 150 characters. The full list with sources is under App limits above.
Is my text saved or sent anywhere?
No. Counting happens in your browser and nothing is stored, not even after a reload.
More tools
Not affiliated with Instagram, TikTok, Discord, WhatsApp, Garena, Tencent, Moonton, Roblox or Epic Games. Names are used only to describe where the text works.