Max length of meta_value

Question

I was wondering if anyone could tell me the max length of the meta_value field for posts and user meta.

Answer 1

Both usermeta.meta_value and postmeta.meta_value are stored as LONGTEXT. Here's how the MySQL docs describe the size of a LONGTEXT data type:

"A TEXT column with a maximum length of 4,294,967,295 or 4GB (2³² – 1) characters. The effective maximum length is less if the value contains multi-byte characters. The effective maximum length of LONGTEXT columns also depends on the configured maximum packet size in the client/server protocol and available memory."

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