⌘ K
escaped pattern · plain text · round-trip

Strip backslash escapes from any regex literal

Reverse a previously-escaped regex back into the literal text it was built from. Runs entirely in your browser.

Regex Unescape
Input
22 B
escaped
Stripped
6
escapes
Output
16 B
literal
Status
ready
go
input · escaped pattern
output · literal text
Quick Start

How to unescape a regex pattern

Reverse a previously-escaped regex literal back into plain readable text.

  1. 01

    Paste escaped regex

    Drop in a regex literal that has been escaped — backslashes in front of dots, stars, parens, and so on.

    Patterns compile through the JavaScript RegExp constructor, so syntax errors surface immediately and engine quirks like Unicode property escapes (\p{L}) work when the u flag is on.

    patternECMAScriptliterallive
    input · literalescaped · regex
    3\.14 \+ \(a\*b\)
    loaded · ECMAScriptPCRE · ready
  2. 02

    Read the literal

    The tool strips the leading backslash from every standard metacharacter, exposing the original text.

    Each flag character mirrors the ECMAScript literal: g enables iteration, i folds case, m anchors per line, s lets . match newlines, u unlocks proper Unicode, y is sticky, and d emits indices.

    flagsoptionsg · i · mlive
    output · optionsliteral · flags
    3.14 + (a*b)
    flags applied · liveECMA · live
  3. 03

    Compare side-by-side

    Sanity-check that what you wrote really is what you think you wrote — handy when debugging a generated pattern.

    Watch for catastrophic backtracking on nested quantifiers — a common ReDoS source. The tool caps match counts to keep the page responsive on pathological patterns.

    matchgroupshighlightReDoS-safe
    diff · outputok · matches
    matches expected
    matches · livegroups · live
  4. 04

    Copy or export

    Grab the output as JSON, CSV, or plain text — ready for your editor or pipeline.

    Copy writes via navigator.clipboard.writeText; downloads use a Blob and object URL, so nothing transits the network and the output is byte-identical to what you see on screen.

    copyexportclipboardblob
    export · exportedready · saved
    Copied
    ready to shipsuccess
Pro tips

Regex patterns that don't melt down

Use named groups

(?<year>\d{4}) reads better than $1 and survives reordering. Supported in ECMAScript 2018+.

Anchor strictly

Use ^/$ with the m flag when matching whole lines. Without anchors, partial matches sneak through.

Avoid catastrophic backtracking

Nested quantifiers like (a+)+ can explode. Run patterns through ReDoS Detector first.

Escape every literal

Backslash any meta character you want literally: \.\$\^\*\+\?\(\)\[\]\{\}\|\\.

Test edge cases

Empty string, single character, unicode, the maximum length you expect — write fixtures for each.

Patterns aren&rsquo;t parsers

Don’t parse HTML, JSON, or balanced parens with regex. Use a proper parser when the grammar is recursive.

Related toolsRegex EscapeRegex ExplainerRegex TesterRegex BuilderRegex ReplaceRegex Cheatsheet
Use Cases

When unescaping helps

Reading regex back as a human-friendly literal.

Debug generated regex

Read the human-readable string under all the escapes. Compiles through the JavaScript RegExp constructor — engine quirks (Unicode property escapes, sticky matching, named groups) work when their flags are on. Error messages cite the exact position of any syntax issue.

ReDoS-safe

Reverse escapeForRegex

Undo a build step in a code review or in tests. Pairs with the ReDoS detector to catch catastrophic backtracking before you deploy. A pattern that handles 1k-character input fine can become a denial-of-service vector on attacker-controlled 1M-character input.

ECMA-compliant

Share a pattern

Strip noise before pasting into chat or docs. Output exports as JavaScript, Python re, Java util.regex, .NET System.Text.RegularExpressions, PCRE, and POSIX — language quirks are highlighted on conversion so you don't ship a JS-only pattern to a Go service.

spec-grade

Migrate flavours

See the literal before re-escaping for another engine. Capture groups (named or numbered) round-trip cleanly into replacement strings, JSON output, or CSV extraction without re-typing. Backreferences ($1, ${name}) preserve semantics across languages.

cross-engine

Sanity check tests

Confirm a test's expected string is what you meant. Test against edge cases — empty input, single character, max length, multibyte boundaries — to catch off-by-one and zero-length match bugs before they reach production.

test-ready

Teach by example

Show students what backslash-escapes actually do. All matching runs client-side so secret patterns never leave the browser. Useful when the pattern itself is sensitive (PII regexes, internal data formats, security filters).

production-ready
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

The 12 standard regex metacharacters: . * + ? ^ $ { } ( ) | [ ] \.
No — those are interpretation escapes, not literal escapes. Only metacharacter unescaping is performed.
Yes. A literal \\ becomes a single backslash, mirroring how regex parses it.
Yes. regex-escape followed by regex-unescape returns the original literal.
No. The tool runs entirely in your browser — your pattern and sample text never leave the page.
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Tell us what you need. We ship the top requests every two weeks.

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