Hidden Description Length Limit in the App? (Leads to Data Loss!)

[Christian Tenisch]

I recently discovered a serious issue in the Trello app that almost caused me to lose important data without any warning.

I had a card in my Trello board with a very long description, which I wrote in the Trello mobile app. Everything appeared fine in the app, and I was able to keep adding as much text as I wanted. However, when I later checked the same card on the desktop app, I noticed that parts of my description were missing.

After some testing, I figured out the issue: Trello has a length limit for descriptions, but the mobile app does not warn users about it. You can enter as much text as you like, but if you go over the limit, only part of your description gets saved online. The rest just disappears when you check on another device.

This is a huge problem because there’s no indication that anything is wrong. I only noticed by chance that my text was cut off, and I almost lost important data.

• The mobile app should warn users when they exceed the description length limit.
• There should be clear documentation on what the actual character limit is.
• The app should prevent users from entering more text than what can be saved instead of silently discarding it.

Has anyone else experienced this issue? Any workarounds besides manually checking everything?

Would love to hear thoughts from the community—and I hope Trello addresses this soon!

[James Hurley · Accepted solution]

Hi @Christian Tenisch - thanks for reporting this. You're correct that the mobile app isn't currently warning users of the 16k character limit for card descriptions, but we're working now to surface a clear warning. Appreciate your patience as we address this!