Question 1

How does the character counter work?

Accepted Answer

Type or paste your text and the tool updates live. It counts characters in a Unicode-aware way (emojis outside the Basic Multilingual Plane count as 2 chars per Twitter's spec — so 😀 counts as 2), words, hashtags (#word), mentions (@word), URLs (auto-detected and counted as 23 chars on Twitter per t.co shortening), emoji with skin-tone variations, and line breaks. Pick a platform (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, or Mastodon) and a mode (post, bio, comment, DM) to see the platform-specific char limit and remaining characters.

Question 2

Why does Twitter count emojis as 2 characters?

Accepted Answer

Twitter's character-counting spec counts each UTF-16 code unit as 1 character. Emojis like 😀 (U+1F600) live outside the Basic Multilingual Plane and are encoded as a surrogate pair — two UTF-16 code units — so they count as 2 characters. Our counter uses the same algorithm so you see exactly what Twitter will count when you post.

Question 3

What are the character limits per platform?

Accepted Answer

Twitter post 280 / bio 160 / comment 280 / DM 10000. Instagram post 2200 / bio 150 / comment 1000 / DM 500. Facebook post 63206 / bio 101 / comment 8000 / DM 20000. LinkedIn post 3000 / bio (headline) 220 / comment 1250 / DM 8000. TikTok caption 2200 / bio 80 / comment 150 / DM 1500. Mastodon post 500 / bio 500 / comment 500 / DM 500 (default instance).

Question 4

What extra features does this tool have compared to others?

Accepted Answer

(1) Unicode-aware char counter (emojis = 2 chars). (2) Word counter. (3) Hashtag counter (#word). (4) Mention counter (@word). (5) URL counter (auto-detect, count as 23 chars per Twitter). (6) Emoji counter with skin-tone variation handling. (7) Line break counter. (8) 6 platform presets with char limits per mode (post/bio/comment/DM). (9) Remaining char calculator. (10) Over-limit warning (color-coded). (11) Optimal length indicator (color-coded ranges). (12) Render as text stats report. (13) Render as CSV (metric, value). (14) Copy + Download .txt + Download CSV. (15) History (localStorage, last 20 recent texts). (16) Shareable URL (text + platform encoded in hash). (17) Summary stats (chars, words, hashtags, mentions, URLs, emojis). (18) Reading time estimator (200 wpm). (19) Truncator (auto-truncate to fit limit with ellipsis). (20) Live preview (text rendered as it would appear).

Question 5

Is my data sent anywhere?

Accepted Answer

No. All counting runs locally in your browser. History (recent texts) is stored in localStorage on this device only.

Social Media Character Counter

How to use