How To Restore The Character Count On Twitter [Chrome]
Twitter has doubled its character limit. It’s gone from 140 characters to 280 characters. The new character limit is slowly rolling out to users all over the world. If it hasn’t been enabled for your account yet, give it a few more days. With this new character limit, Twitter has done away with the character count. When you typed a tweet with the 140 character limit, Twitter told you how many characters you had left. It now only shows you when you have 20 characters left. If you use Chrome though, you can restore the character count on Twitter with an extension called Tweet Counter.
When you type a tweet, you get a progress circle at the bottom that shows you how much of your tweet you’ve typed. When you hit 240 characters , Twitter begins to count down from 20 to let you know that’s how many you have left.
Character Count On Twitter
Install Tweet Counter and refresh the tab you have Twitter open in. When you type a new tweet, you will see a counter at the bottom next to the progress circle. Contrary to the original character counter on Twitter, this one doesn’t show you how many characters you have left. It counts how many characters you’ve typed so far and you need to figure out how many are left.
Tweet Counter works not just for new tweets that you compose but also for replies that you type and for tweets that you quote.
Twitter’s new character limit has been met with some criticism but the way it’s been implemented is what requires a little more attention. On the Twitter apps for iOS and Android, you see the number of characters left only when you hit 270 characters. Twitter app users don’t have any recourse unless they prefer to use a third-party Twitter app. For now, there is no Firefox add-on either that adds this same functionality back to Twitter.
280 Character Tweets
Many people are taking the new 280 character limit to mean they have to fill it all up. For users who have learnt to remain within the 140 character limit, and for those that have learned to make use of Twitter threads, the 280 characters are a bit too much to reach. The thing is, your tweet doesn’t have to be 280 characters. You can still stay within 140 characters and occasionally use the additional characters to spell out words and add prepositions you would otherwise have to leave out with the 140 character limit.
The new character count isn’t a target. It’s just a new limit and should be treated as such when you tweet.
