About JSON Escape and Unescape
This tool escapes text so it can sit inside a JSON string, and unescapes a JSON string back to plain text. It is the same escaping JSON.stringify does for a string. It is free, needs no sign-up and runs in your browser, so nothing you enter is uploaded.
Escape adds a backslash before double quotes and backslashes, and writes line breaks and tabs as \n and \t, so a block of text becomes one line you can put between the quotation marks of a JSON value. A Windows path such as C:\temp\file "x" becomes C:\\temp\\file \"x\". The surrounding quotes are not added, so paste the result between your own.
Unescape does the reverse. Paste an escaped string, with or without its outer double quotes, and the tool shows the real text, turning \n back into a line break and \u00e9 into é, with surrogate pairs such as \ud83d\ude00 turned into the emoji. It is handy for reading a log line or an API error message that arrived as an escaped blob.
If the input is not a valid escaped string, for example a lone backslash at the end, you see the message Input is not a valid escaped JSON string. Escaping leaves non-ASCII characters such as é and emoji as they are. They are valid in JSON as they stand.
How to use JSON Escape and Unescape
- Paste your JSON into the box. The tool checks it as you type and shows Valid JSON or the error.
- Choose a tab: Format to pretty-print, Minify to remove whitespace, Validate to check only, Sort keys to order the keys, Tree to browse, Escape to make or read a JSON string, or To CSV for a table.
- For Format and Sort keys, choose the indent: 2 spaces, 4 spaces or Tab.
- If you see Invalid JSON at line and column, go to that position. For a common mistake, press Auto-fix and check the result.
- In Tree, open and close branches, and click a key to copy its JSON path, such as $.users[0].name.
- Use Copy to take the output, or Download to save it as a .json file (a .csv file for To CSV).
Features
- Pretty-print with 2 spaces, 4 spaces or tabs.
- Minify to a single line with no extra whitespace.
- Validation that reports the line, the column and a plain-English message for the first error.
- Auto-fix for single quotes, unquoted keys, trailing commas and comments. The button only appears when the repaired text is valid.
- Tree view with collapsible branches, item counts and one-click copy of the JSON path of any key.
- Sort keys alphabetically at every level, without changing array order.
- Escape and unescape a JSON string. Unescape reads Unicode escapes, including emoji pairs.
- JSON to CSV for an array of objects, with the union of all keys as the header.
- Copy and Download of the result.
- All processing happens in your browser tab, with no server round trip.
Worked examples
He said "hi" (with a line break after it) gives He said \"hi\"\n
C:\temp\file "x" gives C:\\temp\\file \"x\"
caf\u00e9 \ud83d\ude00, Unescape gives café 😀
Privacy: how it works
- Your JSON is processed by code in your browser tab. Nothing is sent to Ulkaa or to any other server, which you can confirm in the Network tab of your browser developer tools.
- API responses, config files and database exports often contain tokens, emails and personal data, so a formatter that does not upload them is the safe kind to paste into.
Tips
- Fix the first error only, then look again. Later errors often vanish, because one missing quote can make everything after it look wrong.
- Sort the keys of two JSON files with the same settings before you compare them. A text diff then shows only the real differences.
- Use the Tree view to find a path, then copy it. That is quicker than counting brackets in a long response.
- To put text with quotes and line breaks into a JSON field, paste it in Escape and copy the result between the quotation marks.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free?
Yes. There is no price, no trial and no credit card. Ulkaa Tool does the work with your own device, so there is no server bill to pass on to you.
Do I need an account?
No. There is no sign-up and no login. Open the page and use it. An Ulkaa account is not needed for anything on this tool.
Does it run in my browser?
Yes. Your JSON are processed by code running in your browser tab, on your own device.
Is my data uploaded?
No. Your JSON are never sent to Ulkaa or to anyone else. You can check this yourself by watching the Network tab in your browser developer tools while you use the tool.
How do I escape a string for JSON?
Choose the Escape tab and paste your text. Quotes, backslashes and line breaks are escaped. Paste the result between double quotes in your JSON.
How do I unescape a JSON string?
Tick Unescape instead and paste the escaped text, with or without its surrounding quotes. The tool shows the original text.
Which characters must be escaped in JSON?
The double quote, the backslash and the control characters below U+0020, such as line break and tab. Everything else, including non-English letters, may stay as it is.
More JSON Formatter and Validator pages
- JSON Formatter and ValidatorFormat, minify and validate JSON, find errors by line and column, browse it as a tree, and fix common mistakes in one click.
- JSON ValidatorCheck that your JSON is valid and find the first error by line and column.
- JSON MinifierRemove the extra whitespace from JSON to make it smaller.
- JSON BeautifierPretty-print JSON so it is easy to read.
- JSON ViewerExplore JSON as a collapsible tree and copy the path of any value.
- JSON LintLint your JSON, find the error, and fix the usual mistakes.
- JSON Key SorterSort the keys of every object in your JSON alphabetically.
- JSON to CSV ConverterTurn a JSON array of objects into a CSV table you can open in a spreadsheet.