What does the HTML Encoder/Decoder do?

It encodes your text by converting special characters to HTML entities, or decodes HTML entities back to readable plain text.

How do I encode or decode HTML entities?

Select Encode or Decode, paste your text, and the result appears instantly. Click Copy.

Yes, completely free — no account or signup.

When should I HTML encode text?

Always encode user-generated content before displaying it in HTML to prevent XSS (cross-site scripting) attacks. Also use it to display code snippets or HTML tags as literal visible text on a webpage.

HTML encoding vs. URL encoding — what is the difference?

HTML encoding escapes characters that have meaning inside HTML markup ( , &). URL encoding escapes characters that have meaning inside a URL (spaces, &, =, ?). Use each in its appropriate context.

Encoding Tools

HTML Encoder/Decoder — Escape and Unescape HTML Entities Instantly

Convert special HTML characters to entities (&, <, >) or decode them back to text.

Input Text

0 words0 chars

Encoded Output

What Is HTML Encode / Decode?

Convert special HTML characters to entities (&, <, >) or decode them back to text.

HTML encoding converts characters that have special meaning in HTML into their entity equivalents — the most critical being < (for <), > (for >), & (for &), and " (for "). Without HTML encoding, user-supplied text rendered in a web page can break the HTML structure or, worse, execute malicious scripts — a class of attack called Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).

Any text that originates outside your system — from a form input, a database, or an API — and is displayed in HTML must be entity-encoded first. Conversely, HTML decoding converts entities back to readable characters for text processing or display in non-HTML contexts like plain-text emails and Markdown.

Example

<h1>Hello & "World"</h1>→<h1>Hello & "World"</h1>

When to Use the HTML Encode / Decode

→Preventing XSS vulnerabilities — user input displayed in HTML must be entity-encoded to prevent script injection attacks on your web application
→Displaying code examples on web pages — HTML and XML code samples must be encoded so browser tags render as visible text, not as actual elements
→Processing HTML content from APIs — when receiving HTML content in JSON responses, entities must be decoded to extract plain text
→Cleaning text from HTML editors — rich text editors (WordPress, TinyMCE) store encoded entities in the database that need decoding for plain-text use
→Preparing content for HTML email templates — dynamic text inserted into email templates must be properly encoded to prevent rendering issues

How to Use the HTML Encode / Decode

Select Encode or Decode using the toggle buttons.
Paste your text into the Input Text box.
The result appears instantly on the right.
Click Copy to copy the output to your clipboard.

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about HTML Encode / Decode

HTML encoding converts special characters that have meaning in HTML (like <, >, &, ") into their entity equivalents (<, >, &, ") so browsers display them as text instead of interpreting them as markup.