- Home
- Character limits
- YouTube description
YouTube description character limit
A YouTube description can be up to 5,000 bytes, which is 5,000 characters of plain English but fewer if you use accented letters, emoji or Asian scripts (they take 2 to 4 bytes each). Only the first line or two show before “more”.
Saved in this browser only. Nothing is uploaded.
Check the same text against X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google and SMS at once, with your own limit set to this one.
Open the character counterYouTube description: the numbers
| Maximum | 5,000 bytes |
|---|---|
| Best length | 1–150 bytes |
| How it counts | UTF-8 bytes: plain English letters are 1 byte, accented letters 2, most Asian characters 3, emoji 4. |
| English words that fit | 769–909 |
Last reviewed October 2026. Platforms change their limits; when it matters, check the platform’s help pages.
What counts as a character
- YouTube’s limit is in bytes of UTF-8 text: a plain English letter or space is 1 byte, an accented letter 2, most Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters 3, an emoji 4. The counter on this page counts bytes the same way.
- Links and timestamps count like any other text.
- Angle brackets are not allowed.
Best length vs the maximum
- Start with one or two sentences that summarise the video, using the words people search for.
- Add chapters: a list of timestamps starting at 0:00 splits the video into sections.
- Put links and credits lower down.
Questions and answers
How long can a YouTube description be?
5,000 bytes, which is 5,000 characters if you write only plain English letters, numbers and punctuation.
How do I add chapters to a YouTube video?
List timestamps in the description, starting with 0:00, each followed by a title. YouTube asks for at least three chapters of at least 10 seconds.