How to do it
- Paste your post Include links and emoji exactly as you will post them.
- Read the weighted count The number shows how X counts the text, out of 280 for a standard account.
- Trim the highlighted overflow Text past the limit is marked so you can see what to cut or move to a reply.
- Split long posts into a thread If it will not fit, send it to the thread splitter and post it as a reply chain.
How X counts characters
X does not count characters the way your editor does. It uses a weighted count defined in its open-source twitter-text library, and the limit is 280 weighted units.
| What you type | Weight | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Latin letters, digits, most punctuation | 1 each | Covers English and most European languages |
| Chinese, Japanese, Korean characters | 2 each | So a CJK post fits about 140 characters |
| Emoji | 2 each | A skin tone or family emoji sequence still counts as 2 |
| Any URL | 23 | Every link is wrapped by the t.co shortener |
| Images, GIFs, video | 0 | Media does not count toward the text |
Text is normalized (Unicode NFC) before counting, so an accented letter typed two ways counts the same.
What else does not count
- Leading @mentions in a reply. Names X adds automatically at the start of a reply are not part of the count.
- Media attachments. Up to 4 images, or one video or GIF, ride along for free.
Longer posts
X Premium subscribers can post up to 25,000 characters. Those posts show a "Show more" link after the first 280, and followers without the expanded view see the start only. If your audience is broad, put the point in the first 280 weighted characters anyway. The X Premium glossary entry covers what else the tier changes.
Why weighted counts matter for scheduled posts
A post that looks like 270 characters in a doc can be 300 on X once an emoji and two links are weighed. If a scheduler checks length with a plain character count, the post is accepted into the queue and then rejected by X at publish time, usually when nobody is watching.
SocialHandoff checks the weighted 280-character count on every X draft before it reaches your approval inbox, and length is a guardrail an agent cannot bypass. Longer drafts can go out as a reply-chain thread. Read the X scheduling guide, split long drafts with the thread splitter, or start from the changelog thread template.