YouTube · verified 15 September 2026
YouTube title and description character counter
Paste your text and see it counted live against YouTube’s 5,000-character limit — and the length that actually performs. No sign-up.
Quick answer YouTube allows 100 characters in a title and 5,000 in a description. For engagement, the ideal length is keywords in the first 150. Paste your text into the live counter below to check it.
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YouTube
0 / 5,000
Ideal: keywords in the first 150
YouTube character limit — the key facts
- Video titles: up to 100 characters. Descriptions: up to 5,000 characters. Both from YouTube Help.
- Through the YouTube API (how scheduling apps upload), the description limit is 5,000 bytes, so Arabic and other non-Latin text fills it sooner. The counter shows the bytes too.
- Titles and descriptions can't contain the < or > signs.
- Up to 3 hashtags show by your title, and a video with more than 60 hashtags has all of them ignored.
| Metric | YouTube |
|---|---|
| Character limit | 5,000 |
| Visible before “more” | ~157 (first lines of description) |
| Ideal length | keywords in the first 150 |
| Hashtags | 3–5 |
Other YouTube character limits
| Where | Limit | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Video title | 100 | YouTube docs |
| Video description | 5,000 | YouTube docs |
| Description through the API | 5,000 bytes | YouTube docs |
| Hashtags shown by the title | 3 | YouTube docs |
| Hashtags before all are ignored | 60 | YouTube docs |
YouTube character limit FAQs
What is the YouTube title character limit?
100 characters. YouTube Help says video titles have a character limit of 100 characters and can't include invalid characters, such as < or >.
What is the YouTube description character limit?
5,000 characters, per YouTube Help. If you upload through an app, YouTube's API counts the description in bytes (5,000), so Arabic, emoji and other non-Latin text use it up faster. The counter above shows both.
How many hashtags can a YouTube video have?
Up to three of them appear by your title. If a video has more than 60 hashtags, YouTube ignores every hashtag on it, and hashtags can't contain spaces.
How much of a YouTube description shows before "more"?
Roughly the first couple of lines, about 150 characters, depending on the screen. Put the summary and any key link there.
How long should a YouTube title be?
Use what you need up to 100, but put the words people search for first, because long titles get cut off in search results and on phones.
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