Why is Survey123 text field 255 chars, but manually created text field is 256?

Bud — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 13:22:12 GMT

I've used Designer in Survey123 to create a field. This is what the resulting feature layer field looks like:

In a different feature layer, I'm creating a new text field from scratch:

Why is the Survey123 text field 255 characters long, but the new field from scratch is 256 characters long? To my untrained eye, that seems inconsistent.

Idea: Consistent default text field length in AGOL and Survey123

Re: Why is Survey123 text field 255 chars, but manually created text field is 256?

LindsayRaabe_FPCWA — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 05:53:32 GMT

Great question! I've often wondered this too and never asked.

topic Re: Why is Survey123 text field 255 chars, but manually created text field is 256? in ArcGIS Online Questions

Why is Survey123 text field 255 chars, but manually created text field is 256?

Re: Why is Survey123 text field 255 chars, but manually created text field is 256?