HTML Escape / Unescape
Escape or unescape HTML entities to safely display code.
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About HTML Escape / Unescape
HTML escaping (also called HTML entity encoding) converts special characters into their safe entity equivalents: & becomes &, < becomes <, > becomes >, and quotes become " or '. This is essential whenever you want to display code, XML, JSON, or user-generated content on a web page without the browser interpreting it as markup. This tool escapes and unescapes HTML instantly, entirely in your browser.
Escaping is also a security requirement. Unescaped user input rendered into a page is the root cause of Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities — one of the most common security flaws on the web. If you build HTML emails, templates, or content management features, every piece of dynamic text must be escaped before insertion. Developers also use this tool to prepare code snippets for blogs, documentation, and Stack Overflow-style markup.
The unescape direction reverses the process: paste text full of <div> and &amp; and get back clean, readable characters. This is useful when extracting content from XML feeds, database exports, CMS outputs, or log files where everything has been entity-encoded. All five core entities are handled, plus for non-breaking spaces.
Both directions run locally with zero latency and zero data transmission — safe for untrusted payloads, internal documentation, or security research material. The result panel preserves whitespace and line breaks so escaped code remains structurally readable, and a one-click copy button gets the output where you need it.
Frequently Asked Questions
When do I need to escape HTML?
Any time text containing <, >, or & must appear literally on a web page: displaying code examples, echoing user comments, building HTML emails, or inserting arbitrary data into templates. Frameworks like React escape automatically, but plain string concatenation does not.
What is the difference between " and '?
They escape double and single quotes respectively. Quote escaping matters when inserting text into HTML attributes — inside attribute values bounded by quotes, an unescaped matching quote would terminate the attribute early and enable attribute-injection attacks.
Does escaping prevent all XSS attacks?
Escaping prevents XSS in text contexts, but not everywhere: content placed inside <script> tags, event handler attributes, or URL contexts needs different handling. Escaping is one layer of a complete XSS defense, not the whole solution.
Can I escape a very large document?
Yes. Escaping is a fast linear-time operation in modern browsers, and everything runs locally — megabytes of text process without noticeable delay.