Character Counter
Get a detailed breakdown of your text: letters, digits, spaces, and special characters. Check social media character limits.
Social Media Limits
📖 How to Use
Type or paste your text above. The character breakdown updates in real-time showing letters, digits, spaces, and special characters. Scroll down to see how your text fits within popular social media character limits.
Why Character Count Matters
Character counting is essential for anyone writing content that has strict length limits. Social media platforms, search engine optimization, and messaging apps all impose character limits that can make or break your content's effectiveness.
For SEO professionals, keeping meta titles under 60 characters and meta descriptions under 160 characters ensures they display properly in search results. Going over means your carefully crafted message gets cut off with an ellipsis.
Social media managers need to track character counts for every platform — Twitter/X allows 280 characters, Instagram captions max out at 2,200, and LinkedIn posts can go up to 3,000. Knowing exactly where you stand saves time and avoids truncated posts.
Social Media Character Limits
Twitter / X
280 characters per tweet. Threads can extend this, but each individual tweet is limited.
Instagram Caption
2,200 characters max. Only the first 125 characters show before "more" is tapped.
LinkedIn Post
3,000 characters for regular posts. Articles have no practical character limit.
YouTube Title
100 characters max, but only about 70 characters display in search results.
Social Media Character Limits Reference
Bookmark this table as a quick reference for character limits across all major platforms and SEO fields. Staying within these limits ensures your content displays correctly without being truncated.
| Platform / Field | Character Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Twitter / X Post | 280 | Links use ~23 characters regardless of URL length |
| Instagram Caption | 2,200 | Only first ~125 characters visible before "more" |
| LinkedIn Post | 3,000 | First ~140 characters visible in feed before "see more" |
| YouTube Title | 100 | Only ~70 characters display in search results |
| TikTok Caption | 4,000 | Previously 150 — increased significantly in 2023 |
| Facebook Post | 63,206 | First ~477 characters visible before "See more" |
| SEO Meta Title | 60 | Google truncates titles longer than ~60 characters |
| SEO Meta Description | 160 | Google may show up to ~160 characters in search snippets |
Frequently Asked Questions
Do spaces count as characters?
Yes, spaces are characters. Most platforms count spaces toward the character limit. Our tool shows both total characters and characters without spaces so you can see both counts.
What counts as a special character?
Special characters include punctuation marks (!@#$%^&*), symbols, emojis, and any character that isn't a letter, digit, or space. Emojis can count as 2 or more characters on some platforms.
Is my text stored or sent anywhere?
No. Everything runs entirely in your browser. Your text never leaves your device — no data is sent to any server.
Do emojis count as one character?
It depends on the platform. On Twitter, most emojis count as 2 characters. On Instagram and LinkedIn, they typically count as 1. Our tool counts emojis as JavaScript sees them, which may differ from platform-specific counting.
Why does my meta description get cut off in Google?
Google displays roughly 155-160 characters for meta descriptions on desktop and fewer on mobile. If your description exceeds this, it gets truncated with an ellipsis. Use this tool to check your length before publishing.
What's the difference between characters and bytes?
A standard ASCII character (letters, numbers, basic punctuation) is 1 byte. But accented characters, CJK characters, and emojis use 2-4 bytes in UTF-8 encoding. This tool counts characters, not bytes — which matches how most social media platforms count.