⌘ K
entities → text · named · decimal · hex · live

Decode HTML entities to text

Convert & < >   © — back to plain characters. Supports named, decimal, and hex entities. All processing runs locally.

HTML Decoder
Input
95 B
2 lines
Output
49 B
2 lines
Status
ready
live
Ratio
0.52×
out/in
input · html-encoded
output · text
<p class="hi">Hello & welcome</p>
© 2025 — © —
Quick Start

How to decode HTML

Replaces named entities (&copy;, &mdash;), decimal entities (&#169;), and hex entities (&#x2014;) with their actual characters.

  1. 01

    Paste encoded HTML

    Any string containing HTML entities.

    Bytes flow through TextEncoder/TextDecoder for predictable UTF-8 semantics — emoji, surrogate pairs, and combining marks all encode losslessly.

    inputUTF-8TextEncoderlosslesslive
    input · raw byteshtml · UTF-8
    &lt;p&gt;Hi&lt;/p&gt;
    loaded · UTF-8MIME · ready
  2. 02

    Named entities

    Common ones like &amp;, &copy;, &mdash; resolve to characters.

    Hash and signature operations call crypto.subtle from the Web Crypto API, so output matches OpenSSL / Node bit-for-bit.

    namedWeb Cryptosubtledeterministiclive
    named · optionsok · live
    & © —
    options applied · livelive
  3. 03

    Numeric entities

    Decimal &#169; and hex &#x2014; are both supported.

    Options re-run instantly through useEffect + useMemo — switching URL-safe mode or padding doesn’t re-encode from scratch.

    numericmemoisedoptionsinstantreactive
    num · encoded© — · ready
    © —
    encoded · livelossless
  4. 04

    Copy or download

    One click to clipboard. Download as .txt.

    Copy uses the Async Clipboard API; downloads ship via Blob with the appropriate MIME (text/plain, image/png, …) so external tools recognise them.

    exportclipboardblobMIME-correctclient-side
    ok · copiedready · done
    Copied
    shipped · ready to shipsuccess
Pro tips

Encoding without surprises

Always UTF-8 first

Use TextEncoder / TextDecoder for bytes ↔ string conversion. btoa alone breaks on non-ASCII.

URL-safe vs standard Base64

Standard uses +, /, =; URL-safe swaps to -, _, no padding. Don’t mix them.

Hashes aren&rsquo;t passwords

SHA-256 is fast; that’s good for fingerprints, bad for passwords. Use bcrypt / argon2 for credentials.

Watch padding rules

Some decoders are strict about = padding, others auto-pad. If round-trips fail at exactly 1 or 2 bytes, check padding.

Use Web Crypto for keys

Generate cryptographic keys via crypto.subtle, never Math.random. The latter is predictable.

JWT decode ≠ verify

Decoding a JWT just splits and base64-decodes. Verification needs the issuer’s public key / shared secret.

Related toolsHTML EncoderHTML Entity LookupHTML Attribute EncoderXML EscapeURL DecoderUnicode Converter
Use Cases

When to decode HTML

Scraping, log parsing, data cleaning.

Scraped text

Clean up HTML-encoded scraped content. Output round-trips losslessly with the matching decoder — both run client-side, so end-to-end testing happens in a single tab. Encoding flows through TextEncoder for predictable UTF-8 semantics.

RFC-compliant

Database imports

Old data sometimes contains encoded entities. Web Crypto's subtle.digest produces output that matches OpenSSL, GPG, and Node's crypto module byte-for-byte. That makes the result trustworthy as a content fingerprint, ETag, or integrity check.

OpenSSL-matched

Email bodies

Decode HTML emails into readable text. Pairs cleanly with HMAC, JWT, and signed-URL workflows where bit-level correctness matters. The browser's crypto stack is FIPS 140-validated in Chrome and Firefox, so it's production-grade.

lossless

RSS / Atom feeds

Feed content is often double-encoded. Output uses canonical RFC 4648 / 7515 alphabets so curl, openssl, and any standards-compliant decoder accept it as input. URL-safe variants drop padding for tokens that travel in query strings.

byte-identical

Log analysis

Decode escaped strings from server logs. Heavy hashing runs through useMemo so large inputs don't block typing. PBKDF2, bcrypt, and Argon2 expose configurable cost factors — tune for your threat model, not the default.

spec-grade

Copy from devtools

Decode innerHTML strings you copied from devtools. Same input plus same options always yields identical bytes. That's the foundation for content-addressed storage (IPFS, Git, S3 ETags) and means the output is safe to commit to fixtures.

production-ready
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

All numeric entities (decimal &#169; and hex &#x2014;) and the common named ones: amp, lt, gt, quot, apos, nbsp, copy, reg, trade, hellip, mdash, ndash, laquo, raquo, deg.
Unknown named entities pass through unchanged. For complete coverage of HTML5's ~2,200 named entities, paste into a browser DOM and read .textContent.
It runs one pass. Run twice for double-encoded data (e.g. &amp;amp;).
Decoding is pure string replacement — no DOM is created, so embedded scripts cannot run.
No. Decoding runs locally in your browser.
Suggest a tool

Something missing?

Tell us what you need. We ship the top requests every two weeks.

Sent straight to the maintainers · no account needed
47 in queue·8 shipped this month
Request queued. Thanks!