> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://x-preview-mintlify-93ac23a1.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Counting Characters

> How X counts characters in Posts, including the 280-character limit, weighted code points, URL shortening, emoji and Unicode handling, and edge cases.

Posts on X can contain up to **280 characters**. However, not all characters count equally—emojis, URLs, and certain Unicode ranges have special counting rules.

***

## Character weights

X uses a weighted character counting system. Most characters count as 1, but some count as 2:

| Character type | Weight | Max characters |
| :- | :- | :- |
| Latin, punctuation, common symbols | 1 | 280 |
| Emojis | 2 | 140 emojis |
| CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) | 2 | 140 characters |
| Other Unicode | 2 (default) | Varies |

<Tip>
  Use the open-source [twitter-text](https://github.com/twitter/twitter-text) library to accurately count characters in your app.
</Tip>

***

## Emoji counting

All emojis count as **2 characters**, regardless of complexity:

| Emoji | Display | Character count | Unicode |
| :- | :- | :- | :- |
| 👾 | Single emoji | 2 | U+1F47E |
| 🙋🏽 | With skin tone | 2 | 🙋 + 🏽 modifier |
| 👨‍🎤 | Combined with ZWJ | 2 | 👨 + ZWJ + 🎤 |
| 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 | Family sequence | 2 | 4 emojis + 3 ZWJs |

Zero-width joiners (ZWJ) combine emojis visually but don't add to the count.

***

## URL handling

All URLs are wrapped with `t.co` shortener and count as **23 characters**, regardless of the original length:

```
https://example.com                    → 23 characters
https://example.com/very/long/path     → 23 characters
```

<Note>
  This applies to any valid URL detected in post text.
</Note>

***

## Special cases

| Content | Counting rule |
| :- | :- |
| **@mentions in replies** | Auto-populated @mentions at the start of replies don't count |
| **New @mentions** | @mentions you add manually count normally |
| **Media** | Attached media (via official clients) counts as 0 characters |
| **Hashtags** | Count normally (# + tag text) |

***

## Text encoding

The X API requires **UTF-8** encoding. Character length is calculated using Unicode Normalization Form C (NFC).

Example with `café`:

| Form | Bytes | Characters |
| :- | :- | :- |
| NFC (composed) | `c a f é` | 4 |
| NFD (decomposed) | `c a f e ́` | 5 |

X normalizes to NFC, so both encode to 4 characters.

***

## Implementation

Use the official [twitter-text](https://github.com/twitter/twitter-text) library for accurate character counting:

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="JavaScript">
    ```javascript theme={null}
    import { parseTweet } from 'twitter-text';

    const result = parseTweet('Hello, world! 👋');
    console.log(result.weightedLength); // 16
    console.log(result.valid);          // true
    ```
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Python">
    ```python theme={null}
    from twitter_text import parse_tweet

    result = parse_tweet('Hello, world! 👋')
    print(result.weightedLength)  # 16
    print(result.valid)           # True
    ```
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

The library handles all edge cases including emoji sequences, URL detection, and Unicode normalization.

***

## Resources

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="twitter-text library" icon="github" href="https://github.com/twitter/twitter-text">
    Official open-source library for text parsing.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Configuration file" icon="file-code" href="https://github.com/twitter/twitter-text/tree/master/config">
    Character weight definitions and Unicode ranges.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>