Social media character counter

1. Type or paste the text: a caption, a YouTube title or description, or a post.
2. Say what it is where an app has more than one: a title or a description on YouTube, a post or a Premium post on X.
3. Read each app's count against its limit, and the hashtag, mention and link checks under it.
4. Fix what doesn't fit: Trim to fit cuts it at the end of a word for that app, Keep the first 5 takes out the hashtags past Instagram's 5, and Remove repeats takes out doubles. Then copy it.

The longest caption, title or post each app takes, and its rules for hashtags, mentions and links, from the apps' own help pages and developer docs, read on October 26, 2026:

Where the “more” cut falls in the feed isn't in any of these apps' help pages or docs, and it changes with the screen and the app, so the counter doesn't guess. Put what matters in the first line.

TikTok's number is the one TikTok publishes, for its posting API, which scheduling tools use. Meta's docs for Facebook reels give no limit for the description. And Twitch's and Kick's API docs give no maximum for a stream title, so they aren't in the counter.

One emoji you see can be several pieces underneath: 👍🏽 is a thumbs up and a skin tone, a family emoji is four people joined by three invisible joiners, and a flag is two letters. The apps count those pieces differently:

X weighs each character. Most letters, digits and punctuation count 1; emoji, however they're built, and Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters count 2; and every link counts 23, the length of the t.co link X turns it into. The exact ranges are in twitter-text, X's open-source counting code, and the counter uses them.

Threads counts each emoji as its UTF-8 bytes, Meta's docs say: 😀 is 4, 👍🏽 is 8.

TikTok's posting API counts UTF-16 code units, the units JavaScript and many apps store text in: 😀 is 2 and 👍🏽 is 4.

Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn don't say. For them the counter counts UTF-16 code units too, which is never fewer than the characters you see, so it errs on the long side. YouTube's API counts a description in UTF-8 bytes, where an accented letter or a Cyrillic or Arabic one is 2, and a Hindi, Chinese or Japanese character 3: the counter warns when a description is over in bytes but not in characters.

Open on the hook. The start of a caption is what people read before they tap “more”, so make the first line the reason to watch, and the same promise as the clip's first second. Get opening lines from the hook generator, and the formulas behind them in hooks for short videos.

Write YouTube titles for search. A Short's title is what YouTube matches to searches: the words people search first, then why to watch, well under 100 characters. More in YouTube Shorts SEO.

A few hashtags that say what it's about. Instagram takes 5, YouTube shows up to 3 by the title, and Threads makes one the post's topic, so specific ones do more than a long list of broad ones. On Instagram, see how the Reels algorithm reads captions and hashtags.

One clip, a caption for each app. A 2,200-character TikTok caption won't fit X's 280 or a YouTube title's 100. Write the short version first and add to it for the apps that take more: the rest of what changes between apps is in how to cross-post short videos.

Put the words on the video too. A caption under the clip isn't the same as captions on it: those carry what's said to people watching without sound. Keep on-screen text clear of the apps' buttons with the safe zone checker, or let Clyper add animated captions to every clip.