Social Media Character Limits for Every Platform
The main social media character limits are 280 for an X post, 2,200 for an Instagram caption, 3,000 for a LinkedIn post, 100 for a YouTube title and 5,000 for a YouTube description. Most apps cut text off much earlier in the feed, so put the important part in the first 100 characters.
Key takeaways
- X posts allow 280 weighted characters; emoji count as 2 and every link counts as 23.
- Instagram captions allow 2,200 characters, but only about the first 125 show before "more".
- LinkedIn posts allow 3,000 characters.
- YouTube titles allow 100 characters and descriptions allow 5,000.
- Google has no fixed meta description limit; it trims snippets to fit the screen, so about 150 to 160 characters is a safe target.
Table of contents
- Social media character limits at a glance
- X (Twitter) character limits
- Instagram character limits
- LinkedIn character limits
- YouTube character limits
- TikTok character limits
- Google title and meta description length
- What is the character limit for a text message?
- Do spaces and emoji count as characters?
- How to write within character limits
Every platform has its own character limits, and they change more often than you'd think. Write too much and your post gets rejected. Write the right amount but put the good part at the end, and nobody sees it because the app hides it behind "more".
Here's a single table with the current limits for the platforms most people use, followed by the details that trip people up: emoji, links and preview cut-offs. Limits were checked in October 2026, and we link to the official documentation wherever the platform publishes it.
Social media character limits at a glance
| Platform and field | Character limit |
|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 (Premium: longer posts) |
| X bio | 160 |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 (about 125 visible before "more") |
| Instagram bio | 150 |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 |
| LinkedIn headline | 220 |
| YouTube title | 100 |
| YouTube description | 5,000 |
| TikTok video caption | 2,200 (via TikTok's posting API) |
| Threads post | 500 |
| SMS text message | 160 (70 with emoji) |
| Pinterest pin title | 100 |
| Pinterest pin description | 500 |
| Google title tag | No fixed limit (about 60 shows) |
| Google meta description | No fixed limit (about 150–160 shows) |
Want to check a draft against these numbers? Paste it into our character counter and you'll see the total as you type.
X (Twitter) character limits
A standard post allows 280 characters, but X counts them in a specific way. According to X's developer documentation:
- Most letters, numbers and punctuation count as 1.
- Emoji count as 2, even complex ones made of several symbols.
- Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters count as 2.
- Every link counts as 23 characters, whether it's short or very long, because X wraps it in its own t.co link.
So a post with a link and three emoji has 251 characters left for your words, not 280. Premium subscribers can write longer posts, but only the beginning shows in the timeline.
Instagram character limits
Captions can be up to 2,200 characters. In the feed, though, Instagram shows only about the first 125 characters before the "more" link. Lead with your hook or question, and save hashtags and extra detail for the end.
Instagram has also cut the number of hashtags you can use: posts now allow up to 5 hashtags, down from the 30 many older guides still mention. Your bio is limited to 150 characters.
Tip: Instagram strips extra line breaks from captions. If you want a clean gap between paragraphs, our blank text generator gives you an invisible character to put on the empty line.
LinkedIn character limits
LinkedIn posts allow up to 3,000 characters. Like Instagram, the feed shows only the first couple of lines before "see more", so your opening sentence does the heavy lifting. Profile headlines allow 220 characters.
YouTube character limits
YouTube's Help Center sets the title limit at 100 characters and the description limit at 5,000 characters. Neither can include invalid characters such as angle brackets. Search results and suggested videos often cut titles off earlier, so put your main keyword near the start.
TikTok character limits
TikTok's developer documentation lists 2,200 characters for video captions published through its API, and the app has been testing longer captions for some accounts. Either way, only a short line shows over the video, so keep the first sentence punchy.
Google title and meta description length
Search engines don't publish a hard limit. Google's own guidance says snippets are truncated as needed to fit the device's width. In practice, titles around 60 characters and descriptions around 150 to 160 characters usually display in full on desktop. Mobile shows a little less.
What is the character limit for a text message?
A standard SMS holds 160 characters. That limit comes from the GSM 03.38 encoding phones use for plain Latin text. Add a single emoji, or a character outside that set like a curly apostrophe from some keyboards, and the whole message switches to Unicode encoding, which allows only 70 characters per message.
Go over the limit and your phone splits the text into parts. Each part loses a few characters to the information that stitches them back together, so long messages hold 153 characters per part in plain text and 67 in Unicode. You won't notice on an unlimited plan, but businesses that pay per SMS segment watch this closely.
Do spaces and emoji count as characters?
Yes. Spaces, punctuation, line breaks and emoji all count. On X, emoji count double. That's why a character counter is more useful than eyeballing a draft, especially for short fields like bios.
How to write within character limits
- Front-load the message. Assume people only see the first 100 characters.
- Cut filler words. "In order to" becomes "to". "Due to the fact that" becomes "because".
- Use numbers, not words. "5" takes one character; "five" takes four.
- Check before you post. Run the final draft through our character counter or word counter.
Platforms update their rules regularly, so if a post gets rejected, check the official help page for that app. We'll keep this guide updated as limits change.
