WhatsApp silently truncates or rejects text that runs past its per-field limits, and each field has a different ceiling — the 139-character About line is tiny while a chat message can run to tens of thousands of characters. This counter tells you exactly how many characters you have used and how many remain for the About line, Status cards, messages, Channel fields, and group subjects, with a colour warning before you cross the line.
How it works
Each WhatsApp field has a fixed maximum: the About line caps at 139, a text Status at about 700, a Channel name at 25, a Channel description at 500, a group subject at 100, a group description at 512, and a single message at 65,536. The counter measures the length of your text in Unicode code points (using the spread operator so multi-byte emoji count as code points rather than UTF-16 units) and compares it to the selected field’s limit. It then shows remaining characters and turns amber at 90% and red once you exceed the limit.
Tips and example
The two fields that bite people are the About line and the Channel name, because both are short. Write the About line as a single tight phrase — a tagline, not a sentence. For a Channel, lead the 25-character name with the brand and put the detail in the 500-character description. If the counter shows red, trim until it returns to green, because WhatsApp will refuse a value that is even one character over the field’s limit.