Bluesky, copy and paste
Strikethrough text for Bluesky posts, replies and bio
Bluesky posts are plain text, so there is no formatting to switch on. Paste Unicode strikethrough instead: it shows on every client and, unusually, it doesn’t eat into your 300-character limit.
Struck through, this is 20 characters: fits Bluesky post (300) · fits Bluesky bio (256) · fits Bluesky display name (64)
- strikethrough
- short strike
- wavy strike
- slash
- long slash
- double slash
- strike + underline
- strike + overline
- underline
- double underline
- overline
- dotted
- wave
- x below
- redacted
Updated · strikethroughtext.online
Why paste instead of format
Bluesky’s post composer is plain text with a few smart extras: it turns URLs, @mentions and #hashtags into links. There is no toolbar and no Markdown, so typing ~~like this~~ just posts the tildes. The struck-through text above works because it isn’t formatting. Each letter is followed by U+0336, a combining long stroke, and the strokes join into one line. Bluesky stores those characters like any other and every client draws them.
The 300-character limit, and why strikethrough is free here
Most platforms count code points, so a struck letter costs two characters. Bluesky counts graphemes, the units a reader sees as one character. A letter plus its line mark is one grapheme, which means:
- Touching grass today is 20 characters plain and 20 struck through.
- A 300-character post can be struck through end to end and still fit.
Pick Bluesky under Posting to above and the counter uses Bluesky’s rule, not the doubled one. The same trick doesn’t help with emoji: a family emoji is one grapheme on Bluesky but many code points elsewhere, so if you cross-post, check the X or Threads count too.
Where it works on Bluesky
| Place | Strikethrough? | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Posts and replies | Yes | 300 |
| Bio (description) | Yes | 256 |
| Display name | Yes | 64 |
| Alt text on images | Avoid it: alt text is for screen readers | n/a |
| @handle | No, it’s a domain | n/a |
Ways people use it
- Self-corrections: “I
lovetolerate Mondays.” - Bio jokes: a struck old job title followed by the new one.
- Price drops for artists and small shops:
$40$25 for commissions this week.
Accessibility
Screen readers handle combining marks unevenly. Some skip them, some read “combining long stroke overlay” after every letter, which turns a short post into noise. Use it for a word or two, not for whole posts people need to read. If the struck text matters, say it plainly too. On images, write normal alt text.
Cross-posting from X or Threads
If you post the same text to several networks, write it once here and pick each platform under Posting to to check its limit. Threads allows 500 characters and X 280, and both count each line mark as an extra character, so a fully struck post that fits Bluesky may not fit X. The Threads guide covers its limits, and if text you’re pasting came from an AI tool with stray asterisks, run it through the Markdown to Unicode formatter first.
Questions people ask
Can you strikethrough text on Bluesky?
Not with formatting. Bluesky posts support links, mentions and hashtags but no bold, italic or strikethrough. Copy the struck-through text from the tool above and paste it into the post box. The line is part of the characters, so it shows in the Bluesky app, on the web and in third-party clients.
Does strikethrough text use up my 300 characters on Bluesky?
No, and that’s the nice surprise. Bluesky counts graphemes, the characters you actually see, rather than raw code points. A letter with a line mark attached is still one grapheme, so a struck word costs the same as a plain one. On X the same text counts double.
Can I use strikethrough in my Bluesky display name or bio?
Yes. Display name (64) and bio (256) are plain text fields that take Unicode. Your @handle can’t, because it is a domain name and only allows letters, numbers, hyphens and dots.
Will people find my post if the words are struck through?
Probably not by those words. Search matches the exact characters, and a struck word has a mark after every letter. Keep keywords and hashtags plain and strike only the joke or the correction.