Paste text and see how often each character, letter, word, or phrase appears, ranked from most to least common. Check letter frequency against English, keyword density, and the mix of character types.
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DetailsWhat the counts show
The tool counts how many times each item appears in your text and ranks the items from most to least common. You pick the unit: characters (letters, digits, punctuation, spaces) or words, including two-word and three-word phrases.
Each row shows the count and the share of the total. For letters, you can compare the shares with typical English letter frequency. For words, the share is the keyword density, and Exclude common words hides the, and, of so the content words stand out.
Above the settings, a bar shows the mix of character types in your text: lowercase, uppercase, other letters, digits, punctuation, and spaces. Everything updates as you type.
Where frequency counts help
Cryptograms and simple ciphers
Count the letters in a coded message and compare them with typical English. The most common letters in the message often stand for E, T, and A.
Keyword and phrase checks
See how often a word or phrase appears in an article, and what share of the text it makes up, without a manual count.
Editing for repeated words
Exclude common words to see which content words you lean on most, then swap some for alternatives.
Finding stray and hidden characters
Count every character to find odd spaces, tabs, line breaks, and invisible characters in data or code, each shown with its own label.
How to count frequencies in 4 steps
- Choose Characters or Words, and paste your text into the box.
- Check the Character types bar to see the mix of letters, digits, and punctuation.
- Adjust the settings: Ignore case, what to count, phrase length, and which words to exclude.
- Read the Frequency ranking, search or sort it if you want, and click Copy table to move it into a spreadsheet.
Note: There is no run button. The counts update as you type and every time you change a setting.
How the counting works
- Ignore case: on by default. It merges A and a, and The and the. Turn it off to count them separately.
- Percent for characters: the share of the characters that are counted under your Count setting. Choosing Letters only makes the percent a share of the letters.
- Percent for words and phrases: the share of all the words, or all the phrases, in the text, before any exclusions. This matches the usual keyword density.
- Phrases: every run of two or three words in a row is counted. With Exclude common words on, a phrase is left out if it starts or ends with a common word.
- Ties: items with the same count are listed in alphabetical order. Bars show the count compared with the most common item.
Settings for common jobs
A starting point for the settings, depending on what you want to find out.
| Job | Settings | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Letter frequency for a cipher | Characters, Count: Letters only, Ignore case, Compare with English | Each letter's share next to its typical English share |
| Count every character | Characters, Count: All characters | Letters, digits, punctuation, spaces, and line breaks, each ranked |
| Find hidden characters | Characters, Count: All characters | Tabs, non-breaking spaces, and zero-width characters shown as labels |
| Most used words | Words, Single words, Exclude common words | A ranking without the, and, of, and similar words |
| Keyword density | Words, Single words or phrases, Ignore case | Each word's share of all the words in the text |
| Repeated phrases | Words, 2-word or 3-word phrases, Exclude common words | Phrases that start and end with content words |
| Compare two lists side by side | Sort by: A to Z | The same alphabetical order every time, easy to line up |
Typical English letter frequency
In a standard reference table by Lewand, E is the most common letter at 12.702%, followed by T at 9.056% and A at 8.167%. Z is the least common at 0.074%. Different sources report slightly different values.
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The tool runs as JavaScript on the page and has no upload step, so private text and data are not sent to a server.
Reading frequency counts correctly
Three things to keep in mind so the numbers lead you to the right conclusion.
Letter frequency and simple ciphers
In a simple substitution cipher, every plaintext letter is always replaced by the same ciphertext letter, so the letter counts keep their shape. The most common letters in the coded message often stand for E, T, and A.
A short message can differ a lot from the average, so use a longer piece of text when you can and treat the comparison as a hint, not a proof.
Keyword density without stuffing
Keyword density is the count of a word divided by all the words in the text. It helps you notice a word or phrase that repeats more often than it sounds natural.
Search engines do not publish an ideal density, so there is no number to aim for. Read the text aloud, and rewrite any spot where the same phrase keeps coming back.
Hidden and look-alike characters
Spaces, tabs, line breaks, non-breaking spaces, and zero-width characters are shown with labels, so a character that is invisible on screen still gets its own row.
Two characters that look the same but come from different alphabets, such as a Latin a and a Cyrillic a, are different characters and are counted in separate rows. A letter typed with a separate accent mark is merged with its single-character form.
Common problems with frequency counts
The and the are counted as different words
With case taken into account, the same word at the start of a sentence and in the middle of one gets two rows, and the counts are split.
💡 See the solution▼
The top of the list is the, and, and of
Small common words are the most frequent in almost any English text, so they fill the top of the ranking and hide the words you care about.
💡 See the solution▼
A phrase you care about does not show up
A key phrase such as search engine is split into two single words, so you never see how often the whole phrase appears.
💡 See the solution▼
Letter shares do not match the English table
The percentages look far from the typical values, because the text is short, or because digits, spaces, and punctuation are in the total.
💡 See the solution▼
Character frequency counter FAQ
Q.How do I count how often each letter appears?
A. Paste your text, keep the Characters tab selected, and set Count to Letters only. The ranking lists each letter with its count and its share of all the letters. Ignore case is on by default, so A and a are counted together. Turn it off to count capital and small letters separately.
Q.Does it count spaces, punctuation, and digits?
A. Yes. With Count set to All characters, every character is counted, including spaces, line breaks, tabs, punctuation, and digits. Spaces and other invisible characters appear as labels, for example ␣ for a space and ↵ for a line break. Choose All except spaces and line breaks, Letters and digits, or Letters only to narrow the count.
Q.How are words counted?
A. On the Words tab, the tool splits your text into words using the browser's word rules. Punctuation is not counted. Contractions such as don't stay as one word, and straight and curly apostrophes are treated as the same. A hyphenated word such as well-known is counted as two words. Numbers count as words unless you turn on Exclude numbers.
Q.Can it count two-word and three-word phrases?
A. Yes. On the Words tab, set Phrase length to 2-word phrases or 3-word phrases. The tool counts every run of that many words in a row, so the quick brown gives the quick and quick brown. With Exclude common words on, phrases that start or end with a common word, such as of the, are left out.
Q.What does Exclude common words remove?
A. It removes words from a built-in list of 160 common English words, such as the, and, of, to, in, is, it, and contractions like don't. It applies to single words, and to the first and last word of a phrase. It does not change the percent, which is still out of all the words in your text.
Q.How do I check keyword density?
A. Use the Words tab with single words or phrases and Ignore case on. The Share of total column is the count divided by all the words, or all the phrases, in your text, which is the usual way to work out keyword density. Use it to spot a word or phrase that repeats more than sounds natural. Search engines do not publish an ideal density, so there is no target number to hit.
Q.What does Compare with English show?
A. On the Characters tab, with Count set to Letters only and Ignore case on, the option Compare with English adds a typical English frequency next to each letter A to Z, for example E at 12.702% and T at 9.056%. The figures are from Lewand, Cryptological Mathematics. Other sources give slightly different values, and a short text can differ a lot from the average.
Q.Does it show hidden characters and emoji?
A. Yes. A character is counted as a reader sees it, so an emoji or a letter with an accent counts once. Letters typed as a base letter plus an accent are merged with the single accented letter. Non-breaking spaces, zero-width spaces, a byte order mark, and soft hyphens are shown as labels, so you can find them. Look-alike characters from other alphabets are different characters and appear as their own rows.
Q.Can I copy the results into Excel or Google Sheets?
A. Yes. Copy table copies the rows that are currently shown, as tab-separated text with the item, the count, and the percent. Paste it into Excel or Google Sheets and each part goes into its own column. If you use the search box, only the matching rows are copied.
Q.Is my text sent to a server, and is there a size limit?
A. No, your text is not sent anywhere. The tool counts with JavaScript in your browser, and the page has no upload step. The tool sets no size limit, and it recounts each time you change the text or a setting, so a very large text can feel slower on an older device.
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