Decode HTML

Text copied from the web or in data exports often contains cryptic sequences like &, < or ä instead of the actual characters. These are HTML entities - a safe notation for characters that play a special role in markup or could not be typed directly. This tool brings back the plain text: & becomes an ampersand again, ä becomes ä. The text then reads normally again.

The tool understands two kinds of entities: the numeric ones (such as ä or hexadecimal ä) that name any Unicode character exactly, and the common named ones like &, <, >, ", © or €. Numeric entities are resolved completely. An unknown named entity is left unchanged rather than inventing a wrong character - that is the honest choice.

Decoding runs entirely locally in your browser in pure JavaScript - your text is not uploaded, not stored, and no foreign library is loaded from a CDN. The reverse direction is handled by the HTML encode tool. You can download the result as a text file.

Specifications

In 3 steps

1. Paste text with HTML entities into the text field.
2. Click decode.
3. Read or download the readable text.

Limitations: Numeric entities (decimal and hexadecimal) are resolved completely; among the named ones the tool covers the common ones. An unknown named entity is left unchanged rather than guessed wrong. It does not decrypt anything and does not execute HTML. Very large texts are limited by your device memory.

FAQ

Related tools

• Encode HTML
• Decode URL
• Strip HTML