HTML to Plain Text Converter

Convert messy HTML into clean plain text. Strip tags, decode entities, and adjust whitespace instantly.

Clean HTML in one click

Paste HTML from emails, CMS exports, or copied web content. We remove tags, scripts, and extra whitespace, leaving plain text you can reuse anywhere.

HTML input

We show live stats and output as you type.

Unable to parse HTML. Please check syntax.

Characters: 83Words: 8Lines: 1

Cleanup options

Tip

Turn off line breaks for single-paragraph output, or combine options to mimic Markdown style content.

When to use this converter

  • Extract clean copy from HTML emails or CRM exports.
  • Prep text for SMS, chat apps, or documentation where markup is not allowed.
  • Sanitize user-generated HTML before storing plain summaries.

Bonus tips

Combine this tool with Markdown or text formatters for rapid content repurposing. Convert HTML to plain text, then run the result through casing tools or translators without hidden tags.

How this HTML to Plain Text Converter works

This content extraction tool strips HTML markup from documents outputting clean plaintext useful for email composition, text analysis, accessibility testing, or content migration. The converter parses HTML removing all tags, decodes entities to readable characters, preserves paragraph breaks and list structures through strategic whitespace insertion, and handles nested elements maintaining logical content flow. Users paste HTML receiving instant plaintext conversions, configure whitespace handling (preserve line breaks, collapse excessive spacing), and toggle options for link extraction (output URLs alongside anchor text, discard entirely, or include as footnotes). Batch processing handles multiple documents, encoding detection prevents garbled output from character set mismatches, and preview modes display both HTML and plaintext side-by-side for verification. Applications include preparing web content for email newsletters where rich formatting isn't supported, extracting article body text for sentiment analysis or keyword research, creating accessible text-only versions for screen readers or SMS distribution, or migrating legacy HTML content to markdown or other lightweight markup formats.

How to Use

1

Paste your HTML

Drop raw HTML from emails, CMS exports, or code snippets.

2

Choose cleanup options

Control whitespace, line breaks, and element removal.

3

Copy or download

Grab the plain text output for docs, messaging, or QA.

Example Usage

Paste HTML and get clean plain text with entities decoded and line breaks preserved.

Input
<div><p>This is <strong>bold</strong> text.</p><p>&copy; 2024 CodeItBro</p></div>
Output
This is bold text. © 2024 CodeItBro

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the HTML to Plain Text converter do?
It removes HTML tags and returns readable text. It is useful for cleaning copied web content, extracting text for emails, and turning markup into a plain-text version.
Does it keep paragraphs and line breaks?
Good converters preserve logical breaks by converting tags like <p>, <br>, and headings into new lines. If your output looks cramped, try enabling line-break preservation if the option exists.
What happens to links and images?
Images are usually removed, and links may be converted to visible URLs depending on the tool. If you need to keep link destinations, look for an option to include URLs.
Why do I see weird characters like &amp; or &nbsp;?
Those are HTML entities. Most converters decode them automatically, but if not, clean the text again or paste the decoded output into a normal editor.
Is this HTML to Plain Text converter safe?
Yes. It runs 100% client-side, so your HTML is processed locally in your browser and never uploaded to a server.

Related Tools

The HTML to Plain Text is maintained by CodeItBro. We aim to provide the best free developer tools on the web. If you have feedback or suggestions, please visit our contact page.

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