YouTube character counter — title, description, Shorts, tags
YouTube has tighter display truncation than its stated limits suggest. Titles are 100 characters but get clipped at 60 on desktop and 50 on mobile. Descriptions run to 5,000, but only the first 125 show before "…more". The counter handles every field and flags the truncation boundary live.
YouTube has the most complex character-count surface of any major platform because every field has a different hard cap and a different visible-truncation cap. Titles are 100 characters but truncate at 60 on desktop search, 50 on the mobile home feed, and 40 on Shorts. Descriptions stretch to 5,000 but collapse at 125 behind "…more". Tags share a single 500-character budget across the entire tag list. The counter on this page models all of them — pick the field you're writing for and see both the hard limit and the visible window. Titles are the single most important SEO surface on YouTube, which is why the truncation points matter more than the 100-character ceiling.
Every YouTube character limit, in one table
Hard caps, visible-in-feed truncation, and engagement sweet spots for each YouTube field.
| Field | Hard limit | Visible in feed | Ideal range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title | 100 | ~60 | 40–60 |
| Description | 5,000 | ~125 | 200–500 |
| Shorts title | 100 | ~40 | — |
| Tags (total) | 500 | — | — |
| Channel name | 100 | — | — |
| Channel handle | 30 | — | — |
| Channel description | 1,000 | — | — |
What counts as one character on YouTube
Letters are easy. Emoji, URLs, hashtags, and line breaks are where platforms disagree. Here is how YouTube counts them.
| Content | Counts as | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Letter, number, space, punctuation | 1 character | — |
| Emoji | 1 character (grapheme) | YouTube renders emoji in titles and descriptions. Counts by grapheme cluster. |
| Hashtag (#shorts, #tutorial) | Actual length including # | — |
| URL | Actual length | URLs in descriptions become clickable. Titles don't linkify. |
| Line break | 1 character | Only relevant in description and channel About fields. |
| Tag separator (comma) | 1 character | Commas between tag words count toward the 500-char tag budget. |
Writing to the YouTube budget
YouTube's character limits exist in a tension with its truncation windows. The playbook is almost always: front-load the keyword or hook inside the truncation window, then use the remaining space for context that search still indexes.
Title: 40–60 characters, keyword first
Desktop search truncates title display at ~60 characters and mobile at ~50. If the title is 80 characters, the most important words better live in the first 50 or no one sees them.
Description: first 125 chars do the click-through work
The "…more" expand cut falls at ~125 characters. Those first 125 are what the audience sees in search results and in-video description previews — treat it like ad copy.
Use the full 5,000-char description for SEO depth
Nobody reads the full 5,000, but YouTube's search indexes all of it. Longer descriptions with timestamps and related keywords measurably improve long-tail search traffic.
Keep Shorts titles under 40
Shorts feed truncates title at ~40 characters. Shorts that preview a full sentence outperform ones cut mid-word.
Stop stuffing tags
YouTube said publicly in 2022 that tags are a minor ranking signal compared to title and description. Use 4–8 focused tags, not a 500-character kitchen sink.
What people use the YouTube counter for
YouTube-specific workflows from the creators and teams using this tool.
Writing titles that stay intact in search results
Title truncation is the most-overlooked YouTube SEO issue. Draft in the counter with the 60-char window visible so the whole title survives on the SERP.
Structuring descriptions with a 125-char hook
The first 125 characters of the description show before the "…more" cut. That's your ad copy for "why click". Write it first, then add timestamps and details below.
Planning a 500-char tag strategy
YouTube gives you one shared 500-character budget for all tags. It's easy to blow past 500 before realizing. Paste tag lists into the counter to prune.
Polishing a 40-character Shorts title
Shorts are the tightest title environment on YouTube. Paste a draft into the counter and trim until the whole thing fits in the Shorts feed without an ellipsis.
YouTube character counter — FAQ
What is the YouTube title character limit in 2026?+
100 characters. The full 100 is stored and indexed, but YouTube truncates the title display at around 60 characters on desktop search and 50 on the mobile home feed. For Shorts, the feed truncation is tighter at roughly 40.
How long can a YouTube description be?+
5,000 characters. Only the first ~125 characters appear in the collapsed description above the fold; the rest is hidden behind "…more". Search indexes the full 5,000, so long descriptions with related keywords help discovery even if no viewer reads them in full.
Do emojis count as characters in YouTube titles?+
Yes. YouTube counts emoji by grapheme cluster — one emoji, one character. A flag or skin-tone emoji counts as 1 even though it's built from multiple Unicode code points.
What is the YouTube tag character limit?+
500 characters total, shared across all tags combined (separated by commas). It's a single shared budget, not per-tag, which catches out creators copying long tag lists from a spreadsheet.
Do YouTube Shorts have a different character limit?+
The hard limits are the same as regular videos (100-character title, 5,000-character description). The visible truncation is tighter: Shorts feed shows ~40 characters of title before an ellipsis, and description preview is also shorter.
How long can my YouTube @handle be?+
30 characters max, 3 characters min. Letters, numbers, underscores, periods, and dashes are allowed — no spaces or emoji. Handles were introduced in 2022 and are used in the sharing URLs and mention mechanics.
Counters for other platforms
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