A Threads post holds up to 500 characters. For longer writing, Threads lets you add a text attachment of up to 10,000 characters, which readers open under the post. Emoji can take more room than they look: Meta’s developer documentation says that, for posts published through its API, each emoji counts as its number of UTF-8 bytes. Through the API, topic tags take 1 to 50 characters and one post can carry up to 5 links.
Key Takeaways
- Posts: 500 characters per text post.
- Text attachments: up to 10,000 characters plus a link, rolled out from September 2025. They cannot be edited once posted.
- Emoji: through the API, each emoji counts as its UTF-8 bytes, so a smiley takes 4 and a family emoji 18.
- Links and tags: through the API, up to 5 links per post and one topic tag of 1 to 50 characters.
- Edits: you can change the text of a post within 15 minutes of posting, but not its attachments.
Threads limits at a glance
Every figure comes from Meta’s Threads developer documentation, the Threads Help Center or Meta’s announcements, read in October 2026. Where a figure is stated only for posts published through the API, the table says so.
| What you post | Limit | Where it is stated |
|---|---|---|
| Post or reply text | 500 characters | Threads API documentation |
| Text attachment | 10,000 characters and one link | Meta announcement and API documentation |
| Emoji in a post | Counted as UTF-8 bytes (API) | Threads API documentation |
| Links | Up to 5 per post; repeats count once | Threads API documentation |
| Topic tag | One per post, 1 to 50 characters | Threads API documentation |
| Editing | Text only, within 15 minutes | Threads Help Center |
| Carousel | 2 to 20 images and videos | Threads API documentation |
| Video | Up to 5 minutes, 1 GB (API) | Threads API documentation |
| Images | JPEG or PNG, up to 8 MB (API) | Threads API documentation |
What is the Threads character limit?
The Threads character limit is 500 characters per post. Meta’s Threads API documentation states it plainly, “text posts are limited to 500 characters”. A reply is published as a post of its own, and Meta’s documentation gives no separate figure for replies. When 500 is not enough, you have two options: a text attachment, or a chain of posts that reply to each other.
At 500 characters, Threads gives you close to twice the room of a free X post, which holds 280. Bluesky holds 300 graphemes. Our guide to the Bluesky character limit explains how Bluesky counts, and the comparison of Threads and X puts the three side by side.
Can you post more than 500 characters on Threads?
Yes, with a text attachment. On 4 September 2025 Meta began “rolling out a way to attach up to 10,000 characters of text to a post”. The attached text is read directly in Threads, under the main post, and can carry one link to the full piece. Meta’s developer documentation adds that an attachment goes only on a text-only post, without a poll. The official @creators account on Threads added that text attachments support bold, italic, underline and strikethrough.
Two limits come with it. The same @creators post says text attachments “can’t be prescheduled” and that “no edits can be made once your text attachment has gone live”. So proofread before you post.
The rollout reached accounts at different times, and Meta’s announcement said the feature was “rolling out”. If you do not see the option in your composer, the alternative is a thread: several posts, each replying to the one before.
How do emoji count toward the Threads limit?
By their bytes, for posts published through the API. Meta’s documentation says “emojis are counted as the number of UTF-8 bytes” toward the 500-character limit. That is the rule a scheduler meets, since schedulers publish through the API. We found no Threads Help page that says whether the app’s composer counts the same way.
UTF-8 bytes add up fast. Here is what common emoji take, counted from their Unicode code points:
| Emoji | What it is | UTF-8 bytes |
|---|---|---|
| 😀 | A single face | 4 |
| ❤️ | Red heart, with its colour selector | 6 |
| 👍🏽 | Thumbs up with a skin tone | 8 |
| 🇺🇸 | A flag (two letters) | 8 |
| 👨👩👧 | A family (three people joined) | 18 |
A post with ten flags uses 80 of its 500 for the flags alone. If your style leans on emoji, leave room under 500, or count bytes before you schedule. YouTube’s API counts a video description in bytes as well, as our guide to the YouTube description and title limits explains.
How many links and hashtags can a Threads post have?
Up to 5 links, and one topic tag. Meta’s documentation says “the number of links is restricted to 5 or fewer”, and since 22 December 2025 posts with more fail through the API. Repeated links count once. Through the API, the first link in a text-only post becomes its preview card unless another link is attached.
Threads uses topic tags instead of hashtags: one per post, between 1 and 50 characters long. The first valid tag in the text becomes the post’s topic. Through the API, a tag ends at the first space, full stop, comma, question mark or similar character, so a two-word topic typed with a hash sign has to be written as one word. What a tag does for a post, and why a second # word stays plain text, is in our guide to whether hashtags work on Threads.
Can you edit a Threads post after posting?
Yes, for 15 minutes, and only the text. Threads Help says “you can only edit a post within 15 minutes of posting”. You cannot add or remove attachments, and if anyone likes, replies, reposts or quotes the post while you edit, it shows an Edited label. After 15 minutes, the only option left is to delete it.
Replies to posts with reply approvals on cannot be edited at all. And text attachments, as above, cannot be edited once live. Our comparison of Threads and Bluesky covers what else separates Threads from the other text-first networks.
How does PostNext handle the Threads limit?
PostNext checks the 500-character limit before a Threads post is scheduled, counting each emoji as one character. Threads’ API counts emoji by their bytes, so an emoji-heavy post can pass that check and still be refused when it publishes: leave room under 500. PostNext does not publish text attachments; post those from the Threads app; @creators says they cannot be prescheduled in any case.
Longer ideas work as a thread. The PostNext Threads scheduler can publish a multi-post thread together at the scheduled time, each post a reply to the one before. The free Threads post formatter adds line breaks before you paste, and the main site’s guide covers Threads’ own scheduler.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the character limit on Threads?
A Threads post holds up to 500 characters, and a reply is published as a post of its own. Text-only posts can add a text attachment of up to 10,000 characters and a link, which readers open under the post. For posts published through the API, each emoji counts as its number of UTF-8 bytes.
Can you post more than 500 characters on Threads?
Yes. A text attachment adds up to 10,000 characters to a post, and Meta began rolling it out in September 2025. Attachments cannot be edited after posting, and the official @creators account says they cannot be prescheduled. Without one, split the text into a thread of replies.
Do emojis count as more than one character on Threads?
For posts published through the Threads API, yes. Meta’s documentation says each emoji counts as its number of UTF-8 bytes, so a single face takes 4, a skin-tone thumbs up 8 and a family emoji 18. Leave room under 500 in emoji-heavy posts.
How many links can you put in a Threads post?
Up to 5. Meta’s documentation says posts with more than 5 links fail through the API since 22 December 2025, and the same link used twice counts once. The first link in a text-only post becomes its preview card.
How long do you have to edit a Threads post?
Fifteen minutes. Threads Help says you can edit the text of a post within 15 minutes of posting, but you cannot add or remove attachments. After that, the only option is to delete and post again.
Related reading
- Threads vs X: Which One Should You Post On?
- Threads vs Bluesky: Which One Should You Post On?
- Bluesky Character Limit for Posts, Bios and More
- LinkedIn Character Limits for Posts, Comments and More
- Do Hashtags Work on Threads? How Topic Tags Work
Sources
- Meta for Developers, Threads API overview, posts and text attachments (October 2026)
- Meta, Attach Text to Your Threads Posts and Share Longer Perspectives, 4 September 2025 (read October 2026)
- @creators on Threads, text attachments post (read October 2026)
- Threads Help Center, Edit your post on Threads (October 2026)
- PostNext, postnext.io/threads-scheduler (October 2026)
