Alt text is the part of your post most people skip
Writing a description for every image is one of those tasks that feels optional right up until you learn how many people it locks out. Screen-reader users, anyone on a slow connection where the image never loads, and increasingly the search and AI systems reading your page — all of them meet your visual through its alt text or not at all. It gets skipped because it’s friction: you’re mid-flow scheduling a post and now you have to stop and describe a photo. This tool removes that friction — it drafts the description so the honest reason to skip alt text (“I didn’t have time”) stops being true.
What separates useful alt text from filler
Good alt text conveys the purposeof the image in the post, not a catalogue of its contents. Three habits do most of the work: skip the “image of” preamble a screen reader already supplies; transcribe any words baked into the image, since a screen reader can’t read text inside a picture; and stay specific but brief, around a sentence. The generator is built to those rules — and where an image genuinely carries more, like a chart or an infographic, it hands you a longer description so the data isn’t flattened to “a graph.” If accessibility is on your radar, our social media accessibility guide covers captions, emoji, and the rest of the checklist.
The model drafts; you confirm the truth
Vision models describe what they can see well, but they can’t know what they can’t see: the name of the person in the photo, your product, the in-joke the image references, or which detail actually matters to this post. That’s why there’s a context box, and why every result is a draft to check rather than copy to paste blind. It’s instructed not to invent facts it can’t observe — so a quick read against the image, a small fix where needed, and you’re done. Ten seconds of checking beats an inaccurate description that misleads the people relying on it.
Where alt text fits in the rest of the caption
Alt text describes the image; the caption does the persuading — they’re different jobs, and it helps to write them as such. Once the visual is described, our caption generator drafts the words that go around it, and the emoji translator helps you add tone without turning the caption into a screen-reader obstacle course. Alt text, caption, emoji — described, written, seasoned, in that order.
Frequently asked questions
What is image alt text, and why does it matter?
Alt text (alternative text) is a short written description of an image that a screen reader reads aloud to people who are blind or have low vision, and that appears if the image fails to load. On social media it's the difference between a follower understanding your post and hearing silence. It's also read by search engines, so a genuine description helps discoverability — but the real reason to write it is that a real part of your audience depends on it. Roughly one in five people has a disability; alt text is how your visuals reach them.
How do you write good alt text?
Describe what matters for understanding the post, not every detail, and keep it to about a sentence. Don't start with “image of” or “photo of” — the screen reader already says it's an image. If there's important text in the image — a headline, a price, a stat on a chart — include it word for word, because a screen reader can't read text baked into a picture. Be specific and neutral: “A barista pouring latte art into a white cup” beats “a nice coffee photo.” This tool writes to those rules, and gives you a longer version when the image is complex enough to need one.
How long should alt text be?
Aim for around 125 characters for the concise version — long enough to be specific, short enough that a screen reader doesn't drone, and within every platform's field. That's why this tool returns a tight version by default. Complex images (an infographic, a data chart, a dense screenshot) genuinely need more, which is what the longer description is for — use it where the platform allows, or in the post body, so the detail isn't lost.
What are the alt-text character limits per platform?
They vary and platforms change them, but as a working guide: Instagram allows around 100 characters, LinkedIn around 120, X (Twitter) up to about 1,000, Pinterest around 500, and Facebook has no strict limit. The concise output here stays under about 125 characters so it drops into any of them; use the longer description on the platforms with room, or in the caption itself. Always check the current field in the app, since these numbers drift.
Is the alt text accurate? Should I edit it?
Treat every result as a strong draft, not final copy. The model describes what it can see well, but it can't know a person's name, your brand, an inside reference, or whether a detail matters to your specific post — that's what the context box is for, and why you should always read the output against the image before you use it. It won't invent facts it can't see (it's instructed not to), but you're the one who knows the truth of the picture. A ten-second check is the whole workflow.
Does it work for charts, infographics, and screenshots?
Yes — that's exactly what the longer description is built for. For a chart it will state what the chart shows and the key figure or trend; for a screenshot it transcribes the important on-screen text. Complex visuals are where alt text usually falls down (people skip them because they're hard to describe), so add any specifics in the context box — the metric, the timeframe, the takeaway — and you'll get a description that actually conveys the data, not just “a bar chart.”
Is my image uploaded or stored anywhere?
Your image is resized in your browser and sent once to the language-model provider to generate the description — that's how AI vision works — and nothing is kept on our side: no account, no history, and the image isn't saved after the text comes back. As with any AI tool, don't run images you wouldn't want processed by a third-party service (anything confidential or private). For your everyday posts, that's exactly what it's for.