diff --git a/app/javascript/flavours/glitch/features/ui/components/focal_point_modal.jsx b/app/javascript/flavours/glitch/features/ui/components/focal_point_modal.jsx
index 0ee84dd0c2..523276886e 100644
--- a/app/javascript/flavours/glitch/features/ui/components/focal_point_modal.jsx
+++ b/app/javascript/flavours/glitch/features/ui/components/focal_point_modal.jsx
@@ -50,6 +50,7 @@ const mapStateToProps = (state, { id }) => ({
   focusY: state.getIn(['compose', 'media_modal', 'focusY']),
   dirty: state.getIn(['compose', 'media_modal', 'dirty']),
   is_changing_upload: state.getIn(['compose', 'is_changing_upload']),
+  maxChars: state.getIn(['server', 'server', 'configuration', 'media_attachments', 'max_characters'], 1_500),
 });
 
 const mapDispatchToProps = (dispatch, { id }) => ({
@@ -279,7 +280,7 @@ class FocalPointModal extends ImmutablePureComponent {
   };
 
   render () {
-    const { media, intl, account, onClose, isUploadingThumbnail, description, lang, focusX, focusY, dirty, is_changing_upload } = this.props;
+    const { media, intl, account, onClose, isUploadingThumbnail, description, lang, focusX, focusY, dirty, is_changing_upload, maxChars } = this.props;
     const { dragging, detecting, progress, ocrStatus } = this.state;
     const x = (focusX /  2) + .5;
     const y = (focusY / -2) + .5;
@@ -375,7 +376,7 @@ class FocalPointModal extends ImmutablePureComponent {
               >
                 <FormattedMessage id='upload_modal.detect_text' defaultMessage='Detect text from picture' />
               </button>
-              <CharacterCounter max={1500} text={detecting ? '' : description} />
+              <CharacterCounter max={maxChars} text={detecting ? '' : description} />
             </div>
 
             <Button
diff --git a/app/models/media_attachment.rb b/app/models/media_attachment.rb
index bf7d2c0272..f034aef06f 100644
--- a/app/models/media_attachment.rb
+++ b/app/models/media_attachment.rb
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ class MediaAttachment < ApplicationRecord
   enum :type, { image: 0, gifv: 1, video: 2, unknown: 3, audio: 4 }
   enum :processing, { queued: 0, in_progress: 1, complete: 2, failed: 3 }, prefix: true
 
-  MAX_DESCRIPTION_LENGTH = 1_500
+  MAX_DESCRIPTION_LENGTH = (ENV['MAX_ATTACHMENT_DESCRIPTION'] || 1_500).to_i
 
   IMAGE_LIMIT = (ENV['MAX_IMAGE_SIZE'] || 16.megabytes).to_i
   VIDEO_LIMIT = (ENV['MAX_VIDEO_SIZE'] || 99.megabytes).to_i
diff --git a/app/serializers/rest/v1/instance_serializer.rb b/app/serializers/rest/v1/instance_serializer.rb
index 69ffaa346f..cb8949269f 100644
--- a/app/serializers/rest/v1/instance_serializer.rb
+++ b/app/serializers/rest/v1/instance_serializer.rb
@@ -84,6 +84,7 @@ class REST::V1::InstanceSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
 
       media_attachments: {
         supported_mime_types: MediaAttachment::IMAGE_MIME_TYPES + MediaAttachment::VIDEO_MIME_TYPES + MediaAttachment::AUDIO_MIME_TYPES,
+        max_characters: MediaAttachment::MAX_DESCRIPTION_LENGTH,
         image_size_limit: MediaAttachment::IMAGE_LIMIT,
         image_matrix_limit: Attachmentable::MAX_MATRIX_LIMIT,
         video_size_limit: MediaAttachment::VIDEO_LIMIT,