Cast to blob, then length returns length of blob SQLite version 3.25.1 2018-09-18 20:20:44 Enter ".help" for usage hints. Connected to a transient in-memory database. Use ".open FILENAME" to reopen on a persistent database. sqlite> create table t( data text ); sqlite> insert into t values( '12345' || X'000102030405060708' ); sqlite> select data, typeof( data ), length( data ), length( cast( data as blob ) ) from t; 12345|text|5|14