- Characters
- 0
- Words
- 0
- No spaces
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Lines
- 0
- UTF-16 units
- 0
- Bytes as UTF-8
- 0
Roughly
no time to read · no time to say aloud
At 238 words a minute silently and 150 aloud. Both are averages, not measurements of you.
Against the limits people usually mean
- 0of 160
SMS, one message
160 left
160 in the GSM alphabet. One emoji or curly quote switches the whole message to Unicode and the limit becomes 70.
- 0of 160
Meta description
160 left
Google truncates by pixel width rather than character count, so 160 is a convention that usually fits.
- 0of 60
Page title
60 left
Same pixel rule. 60 is where titles usually start being cut in a desktop result.
- 0of 280
X post
280 left
A link counts as 23 characters whatever its length.
- 0of 2,200
Instagram caption
2,200 left
Only the first two lines show before More.
- 0of 3,000
LinkedIn post
3,000 left
Cut off after about 210 characters until someone presses see more.
- 0of 5,000
YouTube description
5,000 left
The first 157 or so appear under the video.
Limits read on 9 September 2026. Platforms change them without announcing it, so check anything you are relying on.
TEXT -> COUNTS · Local tool
Character Counter
Count characters and words live, against the limits you are writing for.
Last updated
How many characters is my text?
Paste it into filetity's counter and characters, words, sentences, paragraphs, lines and bytes all update as you type, with nothing sent anywhere. Three character counts are shown rather than one, because limits disagree about what a character is: a person counts an emoji as one, JavaScript and many databases count it as two UTF-16 units, and a byte limit counts it as four UTF-8 bytes, so text that fits one limit can fail another. Underneath, the same text is measured against the limits people usually have in mind: an SMS at 160, which drops to 70 the moment one character falls outside the GSM alphabet, a meta description at 160, a page title at 60, and the main social post limits, each with a note on what it actually counts.
01 / Your device
the file stays here
02 / Browser memory
the work runs locally
03 / Back to you
saved on this device
When you would use this
Situations, not settings.
- A meta description or a page title
- The bar shows where 160 and 60 sit, with the caveat that Google truncates by pixel width, so those numbers are a convention rather than a rule.
- An SMS that keeps costing three messages
- One curly apostrophe or emoji switches the whole message to Unicode and the limit drops from 160 to 70. The note on that row says so.
- An essay, application or bio with a hard limit
- Three character counts are shown because limits disagree about what a character is, and text that fits one can fail another.
How it works / no cloud
A conversion engine, not an upload form.
Counting happens in the page as you type. Characters are counted as code points, so an emoji counts once rather than twice, and bytes are counted as UTF-8, which is what a byte limit in a database or an API almost always means. The two numbers differ, and knowing which one a limit uses is usually the whole question.
- Offline ready
- Installable app
- No file limit queue
Straight answers
No accordion. Nothing hidden.
- Is it free?
- Yes, with no watermark and no page limit.
- Does it need an account?
- No. There is no account system.
- Is my file processed on my device?
- Yes. The file is read by your browser and never uploaded. There is no server to send it to.
- What formats are supported?
- Any text in. Characters, characters without spaces, words, sentences, paragraphs, lines, UTF-16 units and UTF-8 bytes out, live.
- What are the limits?
- No length limit beyond what a text box will hold. The platform limits shown were read on 9 September 2026 and platforms change them without announcing it.
- Does it work on mobile?
- Yes, on any modern mobile browser. Large files are limited by the memory the phone gives the browser.
- Does it work offline?
- Yes, once the page has loaded. The tool keeps working with no network connection.
- Why do you show three different character counts?
- Because limits disagree about what a character is. A person counts an emoji as one, JavaScript and a lot of databases count it as two UTF-16 units, and a byte limit counts it as four UTF-8 bytes. A caption that fits one of those can fail another, so all three are shown rather than picking one and hoping.
- Why does my SMS limit drop from 160 to 70?
- Because a single character outside the GSM alphabet switches the whole message to Unicode encoding, and a Unicode SMS holds 70 characters instead of 160. A curly apostrophe pasted from a word processor does it, and so does one emoji, which is why a message that looks short suddenly costs three messages.
- Is the meta description limit really 160 characters?
- It is a convention rather than a rule. Google truncates by pixel width, so a description full of narrow letters fits more and one full of capitals fits fewer. 160 is the number that usually survives, which is why it is the mark here, but it is a guide and not a threshold.
- How is the reading time worked out?
- Words divided by 238 a minute, which is the mean for silent reading of English prose from Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies. Speaking aloud uses 150, a much softer figure. Both are averages across many people and neither is a measurement of you or your reader.
- How are sentences counted when there are abbreviations?
- A full stop, question mark or exclamation mark ends a sentence, except after a common title like Dr or Mr and except inside a decimal number. It is a rule rather than an understanding of the text, so an unusual abbreviation will still be counted as an ending, and the sentence count is best treated as close rather than exact.
Keep working locally
3 available · more coming