About this tool
Character and word counts help with essays, social posts, SEO meta and forms with limits. Byte length (UTF-8) matters for databases and messages where non-ASCII characters take more than one byte.
Character Counter
Paste or type text to count characters, words and more instantly.
Characters
0
No spaces0
Words0
Sentences0
Lines0
Bytes (UTF-8)0
How do I count characters in text?
To count characters, add up every letter, digit, punctuation mark, and space in the text; to count without spaces, subtract the number of space characters from that total. Example: 'Hello, world!' has 13 characters total and 12 without spaces.
Steps to count characters and bytes
- Count every visible character, digit, punctuation mark, and space in the text to get the total character count.
- Remove all whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, line breaks) and count what remains to get the count without spaces.
- Split the text on whitespace to count words, and count line breaks to count lines.
- Detect sentences by counting groups of sentence-ending punctuation (period, exclamation point, question mark).
- Measure byte length using UTF-8 encoding, where non-Latin characters such as Korean or Chinese typically use more than one byte per character.
Character and byte counting
Characters (no spaces) = Total characters - Whitespace characters · Bytes = UTF-8 encoded length
- Total characters = every letter, digit, punctuation mark, space, and line break
- Bytes (UTF-8) = storage size; ASCII letters use 1 byte each, Korean and many other scripts use 3 bytes each
Quick character-count answers
Does character count include spaces?
Yes -- the default 'characters' count includes every space, and the separate 'without spaces' figure subtracts them. Example: 'Hello, world!' is 13 characters total, 12 without spaces (one space removed).
How many UTF-8 bytes does one Korean character take?
3 bytes each -- '안녕하세요' (5 Korean characters) is counted as 15 bytes by this tool's byte counter.
Why does an emoji count differently in bytes vs characters?
An emoji like 😀 counts as 1 character but takes 4 bytes in UTF-8 -- far more than a plain ASCII letter, which is 1 byte.
Does this tool measure EUC-KR byte size?
No -- this tool only measures UTF-8 byte size, via the browser's Blob API. In UTF-8 a Korean character takes 3 bytes; in the older EUC-KR encoding still used by some Korean systems, the same character takes only 2 bytes -- a limit stated in EUC-KR isn't directly comparable to this tool's UTF-8 byte count.
What counts as a 'sentence' here?
Groups of sentence-ending punctuation (., !, ?, and the full-width 。！？) in the text. A block of text with no such punctuation is still counted as one sentence.
How are 'words' counted?
By splitting the text on whitespace -- each run of non-space characters between spaces counts as one word.
How many characters can a self-introduction essay be?
It varies by institution and platform -- some count with spaces, some without, and the limit itself (500, 1000, 1500 characters, etc.) also differs by employer or school. There's no single universal number; always check the specific application's stated limit.
How many characters and bytes is 'café'?
4 characters, 5 UTF-8 bytes -- the accented e alone takes 2 bytes, while the three plain ASCII letters take 1 byte each.
Example character and byte counts
| Text | Characters | No spaces | Bytes (UTF-8) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hello, world! | 13 | 12 | 13 |
| cafe au lait | 12 | 10 | 12 |
| The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. | 44 | 36 | 44 |
| 안녕하세요 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
| SEO meta descriptions should stay under 160 characters | 54 | 47 | 54 |
Frequently asked questions
What counts as a character?
Every letter, digit, punctuation mark, space, and line break counts as one character. Emoji and accented letters each count as a single character even though they may take more than one byte to store.
Why do character count and byte count differ?
Character count measures visible units of text, while byte count (UTF-8) measures storage size. ASCII letters like 'Hello' use 1 byte per character, but Korean, Chinese, and many accented characters use 2 to 4 bytes each, so byte count is often larger.
What is the character limit for common platforms?
Limits vary by platform: X (formerly Twitter) allows 280 characters per post, an SMS message segment is limited to 160 characters, and meta descriptions are typically kept under about 155 to 160 characters for search results. Always check the specific platform's current limit.
How is a sentence counted?
Sentences are counted by detecting groups of sentence-ending punctuation (period, exclamation point, question mark) in the text. A block of text with no such punctuation is still counted as one sentence.
Character and byte counts are calculated as you type using standard Unicode text length and UTF-8 byte size; results may differ slightly from a specific platform's own counter if it uses a different encoding or counts emoji as multiple units.
Sources: RFC 3629 - UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646, The Unicode Standard
Privacy and safety
- Runs in your browser — Everything you type is calculated on your own device. Your inputs are never sent to a utilduck server.
- Encrypted connection — Pages are served over HTTPS, so nobody on the network can read what you load.
- Not shared with third parties — Your inputs are not passed to analytics or advertising services.
- Nothing is stored — Results are not saved to any server, and there is no account to create.
Last updated: 2026-08-17