How to strip HTML tags and get clean plain text
When you copy text from a website or email, HTML markup often comes along for the ride—tags, attributes, and special characters that turn readable content into unreadable code. Stripping HTML means removing all that markup to get back to pure text that's ready to use, manipulate, or share without the visual noise and technical clutter.
Why you need clean text
Content copied from websites, email newsletters, and rich text editors carries invisible HTML bloat that serves the browser, not you. That markup makes text hard to search, harder to edit, and breaks formatting when pasted into spreadsheets, plain-text files, documentation, or note-taking apps. Cleaning it up is the first critical step toward turning copied web content into usable data you can actually work with.
What happens when you copy from the web
Browsers store and transmit web content in HTML form. When you copy-paste from a website into a text editor or document, you often inherit tags like <p>, <span>, <div>, and attributes like class or id that add no value to the underlying text. The Remove HTML tags tool instantly extracts just the text content, leaving all markup and attributes behind so you get readable output in seconds.
Handling special characters and entities
HTML also encodes certain characters as entities to prevent parsing errors. Common examples include for non-breaking spaces, < for the less-than symbol, & for ampersands, and " for quotes. When you strip HTML, these entities should be converted back to their actual readable characters. If your pasted content includes many of these special encodings—especially from older emails, archived documents, or exported archives—the HTML entities tool ensures proper decoding so your text displays correctly.
Going further: markdown and URLs
HTML is not the only formatting layer you might encounter. Copied content sometimes also contains markdown syntax or embedded hyperlinks that obscure the plain text underneath. Layer additional cleanup for comprehensive results: the Strip markdown tool removes formatting markers like asterisks and hashes, and the Remove URLs tool strips hyperlinks if you need only the text content without any links. Build a cleaning pipeline tailored to your source material.
Privacy and security
Your HTML-laden text never leaves your device. All cleanup runs entirely in your browser, works offline after the initial page load, and requires no upload to a server, no account creation, and no tracking. Paste confidential emails, proprietary content, or sensitive information; clean it; and move on knowing nothing was sent elsewhere.
Quick tips for best results
Paste your raw HTML text, run the stripper, and scan the output for unexpected spaces or line breaks—some HTML structures hide whitespace that becomes visible only once tags are removed. If the result looks good, copy it directly to your destination or download it as a plain-text file to preserve the cleanup. For content with multiple formatting layers, run tools in sequence: remove HTML first, then entities, then markdown or URLs as needed.