HTML Unescape — Complete Guide
HTML unescaping reverses the escaping process. It converts HTML entities like <, >, &, and " back into their original characters. This is useful when you receive HTML-escaped text and need to work with the original string.
Common scenarios include processing HTML stored in databases or APIs where the content was escaped before storage, or displaying escaped HTML source code in a format where you want the original characters.
What you can do with HTML Unescape
- Converting HTML-escaped content from databases or APIs back to readable text
- Extracting plain text from HTML entity-encoded strings
- Processing RSS feeds and web scraping results that contain HTML entities
- Debugging templates that may have double-escaped content
How to use HTML Unescape
Paste the HTML-escaped text into the input field
The unescaped text appears automatically
Copy the result with original characters restored
Tips for best results
Watch for double-escaping — if &lt; appears in your output, the input was escaped twice and needs to be unescaped once more
Named entities like (non-breaking space) and numeric entities like ' are both supported
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Frequently asked questions
What are the most common HTML entities I will encounter?
< is less-than, > is greater-than, & is ampersand, " is double-quote, is a non-breaking space, and ' or ' is an apostrophe.
Why would content be double-escaped?
Double-escaping happens when content is escaped at multiple layers — for example, if a value is escaped before saving to a database and then escaped again when rendering. The result is entities like &lt; instead of <.