Message Length Checker
Paste a message once and see whether it fits Discord, Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, Messenger, Instagram, Teams, X and SMS. Too long? Split it into parts you can copy one by one.
Your message
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characters
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words
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SMS parts
Fits where?
4,000 with Nitro
photo and video captions: 1,024
Business API text and broadcasts: 4,096
longer text is sent as a snippet
approximate, not published by Microsoft
widely reported, not in X Help
Premium: 25,000
70 if the text contains emoji or non-Latin letters
SMS row shows GSM-7 encoding: 160 characters in one text, 153 per part after that. Counted in your browser; nothing is stored.
Split into parts for
Paste a message above to split it.
Quick answer
The tightest common limits are Instagram DMs at 1,000 characters, Discord and Messenger at 2,000, and Telegram and WhatsApp Business at 4,096. Slack (40,000), Teams (about 28,000) and WhatsApp in the app (65,536) will take anything you would reasonably type. A single SMS holds 160 characters, or 70 if it contains an emoji, after which it is billed in parts of 153 or 67. If a message is over a limit, split it at a sentence break rather than mid-word; the tool above does that for you.
Message length limits by app (2026)
Every figure below was checked against the platform's own documentation or, where the platform publishes nothing, against two independent vendor sources, in October 2026. The "words" column assumes about 6.2 characters per word including the space, which is average English.
| App | Where | Characters | About | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discord | message (free) | 2,000 | ~323 words | 4,000 with Nitro |
| Discord Nitro | message | 4,000 | ~645 words | |
| Telegram | message | 4,096 | ~661 words | photo and video captions: 1,024 |
| Telegram | media caption | 1,024 | ~165 words | |
| message (app) | 65,536 | ~10,570 words | Business API text and broadcasts: 4,096 | |
| WhatsApp Business | API text / broadcast | 4,096 | ~661 words | |
| Facebook Messenger | message | 2,000 | ~323 words | |
| direct message | 1,000 | ~161 words | ||
| Slack | message | 40,000 | ~6,452 words | longer text is sent as a snippet |
| Microsoft Teams | chat message | 28,000 | ~4,516 words | approximate, not published by Microsoft |
| X (Twitter) | direct message | 10,000 | ~1,613 words | widely reported, not in X Help |
| X (Twitter) | post (free) | 280 | ~45 words | Premium: 25,000 |
| SMS | single text (GSM-7) | 160 | ~26 words | 70 if the text contains emoji or non-Latin letters |
iMessage, Signal and Google Messages (RCS) publish no limit and accept several thousand characters in practice, so they are not listed with a number. For profile fields, bios and post captions on social networks, see the full character limits reference.
How to send a message that is too long
You have three options, and which one is right depends on who is reading. Split it when the reader will read it on a phone: two or three messages of 1,800 characters each read better on Discord than one wall of text, and the splitter above cuts at paragraph or sentence ends so no part begins mid-thought. Attach it as a file when it is reference material: Discord, Slack, Telegram and Teams all preview .txt and .md files inline. Link it when the text will change: a Google Doc or a pastebin link stays current, a pasted message does not.
If you are hitting a limit regularly, the message is usually too long for chat anyway. The word counter shows reading time; anything over two minutes of reading belongs in a document, with a two-sentence summary in the chat.
What counts as a character
Spaces and line breaks count on every platform. Plain emoji count as one on Discord, Telegram, Slack and WhatsApp, but as two on SMS, because SMS in Unicode mode counts 16-bit units and most emoji need two. Emoji with skin tones, flags and family groups are several code points joined together: a single family emoji can cost 7 to 11 units on apps that count that way. Discord custom emoji are different again: the app shows a picture, but what is sent is text like a colon, the name, another colon and a long number, so one custom emoji can eat 25 characters of your 2,000.
Markdown costs characters too. Bold on Discord is two asterisks on each side, a code block is six backticks plus a language tag, and a link with display text on Slack is the full URL plus the label. The checker counts the raw text you paste, which is what the platform counts, so write the formatting in before you check.
SMS: why one text can cost three
Carriers bill SMS by segment, and the segment size depends on the alphabet. If every character is in the GSM-7 set (basic Latin letters, digits, common punctuation and a few accented letters), one segment holds 160 characters and a long message is cut into parts of 153. A few symbols in that set (the euro sign, square brackets, braces, the backslash, tilde, pipe and caret) cost two each. The moment the text includes anything outside the set, which includes every emoji, curly quotes copied from Word, and letters from most non-Latin scripts, the whole message switches to UCS-2: 70 characters per segment, 67 per part. A 150-character text with one smiley is therefore three segments, not one. The SMS row in the tool tells you which encoding you have triggered; the usual fix is to replace the smiley with a colon and a bracket, and curly quotes with straight ones. There is a fuller explanation in the SMS character counter guide.
Checking a post, bio or caption instead?
The character counter tracks Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and more as you type
Character CounterAll Character LimitsFrequently Asked Questions
What is the Discord character limit?
Discord messages are capped at 2,000 characters for free accounts and 4,000 characters with Nitro. Discord counts every character including spaces and line breaks; most emoji count as one character, but custom server emoji are sent as text codes of 20 to 30 characters each.
How do I send a long message on Discord?
Split it. Paste the message into the checker above, choose Discord, and it cuts the text into parts under 2,000 characters at paragraph or sentence breaks, each with a copy button. Alternatively, paste the text into a .txt file and attach it; files up to 10 MB are free, and Discord shows a preview.
What is the Telegram message limit?
A Telegram text message can hold 4,096 characters. Captions on photos, videos and files are limited to 1,024 characters. Telegram bots are bound by the same limits through the Bot API.
What is the WhatsApp character limit?
A WhatsApp message in the app can hold 65,536 characters, which is effectively unlimited for a chat. Business API text messages and broadcast lists are capped at 4,096 characters, and message templates have smaller per-field limits, so the practical ceiling is 4,096 if a business or a tool is sending for you.
Why does SMS say 160 characters for some texts and 70 for others?
A text in the basic Latin alphabet is encoded as GSM-7, which fits 160 characters in one message and 153 per part after that. Add one emoji, a curly quote, or a letter outside that alphabet, and the whole message switches to UCS-2 encoding: 70 characters per single message, 67 per part. The checker shows which encoding your text triggers and how many parts it will take.
Do emoji count as one character?
It depends on the app. Discord, Telegram and Slack count most emoji as one character. SMS in UCS-2 counts them as two. Some emoji with skin tones or flags are built from several code points and count as 2 to 7 on apps that count code units. If you are close to a limit, leave 10 characters of headroom for emoji.
Is there a character limit on iMessage or Signal?
Neither Apple nor Signal publishes a limit, and in practice both accept messages of several thousand characters. The checker leaves them out rather than show an unverified number. If you are sending an iMessage to an Android phone, it falls back to SMS or RCS, and the SMS limits apply.
Does this tool store my message?
No. The counting runs in your browser and nothing is sent to a server. Reloading the page clears the text.
Sources
- Telegram Bot API constants: MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH 4096, MAX_CAPTION_LENGTH 1024
- Discord Help Center: 2,000 character messages, 4,000 with Nitro
- Meta Messenger Platform Send API: 2,000 character text limit; Instagram Messaging API: 1,000
- Meta WhatsApp Cloud API: 4,096 character text body for business messages; 65,536 in the consumer app (Sinch and Symphony documentation, 2026)
- Slack API: 40,000 character message text limit
- Microsoft Teams: approximately 28,000 characters per chat message (m365.fm governance guide, May 2026; Microsoft publishes no figure)
- Twilio and GSM 03.38: SMS 160/153 (GSM-7) and 70/67 (UCS-2), extension characters count double