Do spaces count as characters?

Yes, in a count with spaces. A count without spaces leaves them out.

Why do two character counters give different numbers?

They may treat spaces, line breaks and emoji differently, or count code units instead of visible characters.

How many characters is an emoji?

It depends on the tool. As a reader sees it, one. In UTF-16 it is two to eight units, and in UTF-8 it takes four or more bytes.

How do I count characters in Word?

Choose Review, then Word Count. The box shows characters with and without spaces.

Character Count Explained: With and Without Spaces, Emoji, Bytes and Limits

What a character count really counts, why two tools can give different numbers, and which limits matter where you write.

The short answer

A character count is the number of letters, digits, spaces, punctuation marks and symbols in a text. Whether spaces and line breaks are included, and how emoji are counted, depends on the tool. That is why two counters can disagree about the same text.

With spaces and without spaces

Characters with spaces counts everything you typed. Characters without spaces leaves out the spaces, and usually the tabs and line breaks too. Essays and applications often ask for one or the other, so check which. The character counter with spaces shows both.

Line breaks

A line break is one character on Mac and Linux and two on Windows. Some forms count every line break as two characters. If you are close to a limit, test the text in the real form.

Emoji, accents and Unicode

A single emoji can be made of several Unicode values. A thumbs-up with a skin tone is two code points, and a family emoji can be seven. Languages also report different numbers for the same string:

Method	Counts	A thumbs-up with a skin tone
Characters as people see them	What a reader sees as one symbol	1
Unicode code points	Each Unicode value	2
UTF-16 units	JavaScript and Java string length	4
UTF-8 bytes	Storage in files and most databases	8

Characters and bytes

A byte is a unit of storage. In UTF-8, English letters take one byte, accented letters two, most Asian characters three and emoji four. When a limit is set in bytes, such as a field in an API, a text with many non-English characters reaches it sooner. Use the byte counter to check.

Limits to know

Where	Limit
SMS, standard alphabet (GSM-7)	160 in one message, 153 per part when joined
SMS with emoji or other scripts (UCS-2)	70 in one message, 67 per part when joined
X post	280 (25,000 with Premium), links count as 23
Bluesky post	300
Threads post	500
Instagram caption	2,200
LinkedIn post	3,000
YouTube title and description	100 and 5,000
Search result title	about 600 pixels (50 to 60 characters)
Search result description	about 920 pixels on desktop, 680 on mobile

Check live counts with the X character counter and the meta description counter. Platforms change their limits, so confirm important numbers in the app.

How to count characters in other tools

Word: Review, then Word Count. It shows characters with and without spaces.
Google Docs: Tools, then Word count (Ctrl+Shift+C, or Cmd+Shift+C on Mac).
Excel and Google Sheets: =LEN(A1) counts with spaces, and =LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","")) counts without spaces.

Counting in code

// JavaScript: characters as people see them
[...new Intl.Segmenter().segment(text)].length
// UTF-16 units
text.length

# Python: code points, and UTF-8 bytes
len(text)
len(text.encode("utf-8"))

// PHP: characters, and bytes
mb_strlen($text);
strlen($text);

// Java: code points, and UTF-16 units
text.codePointCount(0, text.length());
text.length();

Related tools

Count sentences and paragraphs, letters with the letter counter, or read the guide to counting letters and the guide to counting lines.

Count your text now. See characters with and without spaces, line breaks and words as you type.

Open the character counter

Character Count Explained