Why is my text split into several messages? The 160-character limit, emoji and curly quotes
You typed a short message and it went as three texts, or a bulk-send bill came in at double. Here's the arithmetic behind it.
The numbers
| Message uses | One text | Each part when split | Two parts hold | Three parts hold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain characters only (GSM-7) | 160 | 153 | 306 | 459 |
| Any emoji or special character (UCS-2) | 70 | 67 | 134 | 201 |
The plain alphabet covers A to Z, a to z, digits, common punctuation, £ $ ¥ @ and a handful of accented letters such as é è ü ñ. A few extra characters, € [ ] { } ~ ^ | \, are in a side table and count as two each, because each is sent as an escape code followed by the character.
The sneaky ones that cost you
- Curly quotes and apostrophes (’ “ ”). iPhones and many keyboards add them automatically. On iPhone, Settings, General, Keyboard, Smart Punctuation turns that off.
- Dashes and ellipsis (– — …), often added by autocorrect or pasted from a document.
- Invisible characters pasted from web pages or documents: non-breaking spaces and zero-width spaces. You can't see them, but they switch the whole message to Unicode. More on those in invisible zero-width characters.
- Emoji. Most count as two Unicode characters, and flags and family emoji can be four to eleven.
One of these anywhere in a 150-character message turns one text into three.
Do I pay for each part?
On most phone plans with unlimited texts it doesn't matter. On pay-as-you-go plans, and for anyone sending reminders, codes or alerts through a text service, each part is usually billed as one message. A 161-character reminder to 1,000 people costs twice what a 160-character one does. Many people also see split messages arrive separately or out of order on older phones.
Keeping a message to one text
- Paste it into the SMS length counter. It shows the parts, the count left and every character that forced Unicode.
- Press Swap for plain characters to turn curly quotes, dashes, ellipses and odd spaces into plain ones.
- Shorten links and drop the emoji if you're right at the edge.
Chat apps, iMessage and RCS don't have this limit; it only applies when a message goes as a plain SMS. The interactive Wirebook lesson on how a text finds a phone has a live counter that shows how many "frogs" (parts) a message needs.
Related
Not receiving texts · SMS vs MMS vs RCS vs iMessage · Sent but not Delivered · Emoji shows as a box
Questions
How many characters can one text message have?
160 if every character is in the plain GSM-7 alphabet, or 70 if the message contains any emoji, curly quote or other character outside it.
Why does one emoji make my text so much shorter?
It switches the whole message from 7-bit GSM-7 to 16-bit Unicode, so the same 140 bytes hold 70 characters instead of 160. Most emoji also count as two of those.
Why are split texts 153 characters, not 160?
Each part carries a small hidden header saying which message it belongs to and which part it is, so the phone can join them in order. That header takes the space of 7 plain characters (3 Unicode ones).
Does the euro sign count as two characters?
Yes, in a plain text. € and [ ] { } ~ ^ | \ are sent as an escape code plus the character, so each counts as two.
How do I stop my iPhone using curly apostrophes?
Turn off Settings, General, Keyboard, Smart Punctuation. Then apostrophes and quotes stay plain and texts stay in the 160-character mode.
Published · updated .