Live counts for the highlighted text in your Visual Studio Code editor — characters, words, letters, numbers, and special characters, displayed in the status bar.
Selection Count puts a fast, configurable readout of what you've selected right in the status bar. Pick exactly which counts you want to see and they update as you change the selection.
Demo
Features
Character count — total characters in the selection (including whitespace).
Word count — whitespace-separated tokens in the selection.
Letter count — any Unicode letter, including accented characters like é and non-Latin scripts.
Number count — any Unicode digit, including superscripts like ² and non-Latin numerals.
Special character count — every character that is not a letter, digit, or whitespace.
Configurable display — pick which of the five counts appear in the status bar from Selection Count settings; the others stay hidden.
Multi-selection aware — counts aggregate across every active selection range.
Status bar toggle — quickly show or hide the entire Selection Count readout from the Command Palette.
Commands
Command
Description
Selection Count: Toggle Visibility
Show or hide the Selection Count status bar item.
Selection Count: Configure Display
Pick which counts (characters, words, letters, numbers, special) appear in the status bar.
All commands are available through the Command Palette (search for "Selection Count").
Settings
Setting
Default
Description
selectionCount.show.characters
true
Include character count in the status bar readout.
selectionCount.show.words
true
Include word count in the status bar readout.
selectionCount.show.letters
false
Include letter count (Unicode letters) in the status bar readout.
selectionCount.show.numbers
false
Include digit count (Unicode digits) in the status bar readout.
selectionCount.show.specialCharacters
false
Include special-character count in the status bar readout.
selectionCount.enabled
true
Show the Selection Count status bar item.
selectionCount.format
"text"
How counts are rendered in the status bar. "text" for full words, "icons" for VS Code codicons.
Requirements
Visual Studio Code 1.85 or later.
Issues and feedback
Please file issues and feature requests on GitHub.
