About this character counter
Character Counter
A character counter tells you exactly how many characters your text contains — with spaces, without spaces, and per line — updating live as you type. Paste your text and you instantly know whether it fits the limit you are writing against.
How to use it
- Type or paste your text into the Text box.
- Read the live totals: Characters, Characters (no spaces), and Lines.
- Compare against your target — the tool highlights when you exceed common limits you set.
- Use Clear to reset, or Copy to copy the text back out.
The method behind it
Frequently asked questions
Do spaces count as characters?
Yes — in the main total. Platforms, databases, and form validators count spaces, so the primary number includes them. The separate "no spaces" total exists for the cases that exclude whitespace, such as some editorial guidelines and translation pricing. If you are unsure which a limit uses, assume spaces count.
Why does my emoji count as two characters?
Some counters use JavaScript's `.length`, which counts UTF-16 code units — most emoji are stored as a two-unit surrogate pair, so they report 2. This tool counts user-perceived characters, so an emoji counts as 1. If a platform's count disagrees with the tool's, the platform is likely counting code units; trim a little extra margin.
What is the character limit for a meta description?
Search engines typically display around 150–160 characters of a meta description before truncating it. That is why this site's own SEO spec targets that range. Write the key message inside the first 150 characters so nothing important gets cut off in the search snippet.
How many characters fit in one SMS?
A single SMS segment holds 160 characters in the GSM character set (basic Latin letters, digits, and common symbols). Text with emoji or non-Latin scripts switches to Unicode encoding at 70 characters per segment, and longer messages are split into multiple billed segments. Keep alerts and codes short.
Is my text sent to a server?
No. Counting runs entirely in your browser with JavaScript — nothing is uploaded, stored, or logged, and there is no account or history that could leak. That makes the tool safe for confidential drafts, unpublished manuscripts, client work under NDA, and any text you would never paste into a server-side tool.
Worked example
Input: Ship it.
- Characters: 8 — S(1) h(2) i(3) p(4) space(5) i(6) t(7) .(8)
- Characters (no spaces): 7
- Lines: 1
A multiline check:
` Line one Line two Line three `
- Characters: 28 (8 + 1 newline + 8 + 1 newline + 10)
- Characters (no spaces): 24
- Lines: 3
Newlines count as characters in the "with spaces" total — which is exactly how form fields and databases measure the string they store. Complex characters like emoji count as single user-perceived characters, following UAX #29, the Unicode text segmentation standard.