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Free Character Counter

Count characters with and without spaces, plus words, sentences, paragraphs, and reading time. Every number updates as you type.

  • Free to use
  • No sign-up required
  • Runs entirely in your browser
Characters
0
No spaces
0
Words
0
Sentences
0
Paragraphs
0

Estimated reading time: 0 min

Free from the team behind Typeahead. Autocomplete for the Mac apps you write in.

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What is a character counter?

A character counter measures every letter, number, punctuation mark, symbol, and space in your text. It helps you fit headlines, captions, applications, summaries, and other writing into a fixed limit. This counter shows totals with and without spaces, then adds the wider context: words, sentences, paragraphs, and reading time.

Make every character fit.

Character limits are hard stops. X caps a post at 280 characters and counts most emoji as two, so a draft that looks short enough can still be rejected. A live counter keeps the number in view while you write, so you can tighten the message without pasting it into another app to check.

Source: X Developer Platform, Counting Characters

Where it matters
Social captions, ad copy, meta descriptions, email subject lines, application fields, abstracts, summaries, and any brief with a hard character limit.
What the Character Counter does
Updates six useful text measurements instantly, including separate character totals with and without spaces.

Count it in three steps.

  • Paste or start typing.

    Add any draft directly to the editor.

  • Watch every count.

    Six live metrics update with each change.

  • Edit to fit.

    Trim or expand your draft until it meets the brief.

Character limits worth knowing.

Platforms change their limits, so check the current number before a campaign goes out.

  • X post: 280. Most emoji and Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters count as two, so the real ceiling can be 140.

  • Google Ads headline: 30. Each headline in a Google search text ad can hold up to 30 characters.

  • Google Ads description: 90. Each description line in a Google search text ad can hold up to 90 characters.

  • SMS segment: 160. A standard text message holds 160 characters. Add an emoji and each segment drops to 70.

Short copy is still slow to type.

Captions, bios, and ad variants add up. Typeahead suggests the rest of each line as you type, in your Mac apps.

Tab takes the suggestion. The right arrow takes one word. One word at a time is handy when you're writing to a limit.

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Common questions

A character counter measures every letter, number, punctuation mark, symbol, and space in a piece of text. This tool shows totals both with and without spaces, alongside words, sentences, paragraphs, and estimated reading time.

Both versions are shown. “Characters with spaces” includes spaces, tabs, and line breaks. “Characters without spaces” removes all whitespace before counting.

There is no letters-only total. The count without spaces removes whitespace but still includes digits, punctuation, and symbols, which is how most forms and platforms measure a limit.

An emoji usually counts as two characters here, and some combined emoji count as more, because the tool measures text the way browsers store it. Platforms apply their own weighting on top. X, for example, counts most emoji as two toward its 280-character limit.

A standard post on X can hold up to 280 characters. Latin letters, punctuation, and common symbols count as one each. Emoji and Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters count as two, so a post written in those can run out at 140.

Sentences end at a period, question mark, or exclamation point. Titles like Dr. and Mrs., the abbreviations e.g. and i.e., decimals, email addresses, and web addresses are not treated as sentence ends. Paragraphs are non-empty blocks separated by line breaks.

Neither. The counter is free with no account, and it works on the text inside your browser tab. Nothing you type is transmitted or saved.

Short copy, fewer keystrokes.

Typeahead suggests the rest of each line in Mac apps with a standard text field, so short copy takes fewer keystrokes.

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