HTML Entity Decoder
Turn HTML entities back into characters.
Free HTML entity decoder. Convert & < 😀 and friends back into readable characters instantly in your browser.
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About HTML Entity Decoder
Somewhere between a database and your screen, text picks up escape codes. An ampersand becomes &, a less-than sign becomes <, an emoji becomes 😀. These are HTML entities, the web's way of representing characters that would otherwise be misread as markup. Scrape a page, export a feed, or copy from a CMS, and you'll often meet them in the wild.
This decoder turns entities back into the characters they stand for: named entities like ©, decimal numeric forms like ©, and hexadecimal forms like 😀. Paste the text, click decode, and copy out clean readable characters.
One practical note: entities sometimes get encoded twice, &amp; instead of &, usually after text passes through two systems that each escaped it. If your output still shows entity codes after decoding, just run it through the tool a second time. And when you need to go the other direction, the companion HTML Entity Encoder reverses the process.
How to use HTML Entity Decoder
- Paste text containing HTML entities.
- Click Decode.
- Copy the decoded characters.
Why use this tool?
- Handles named, decimal and hex entities
- Instant one-click decoding
Tips for best results
- Still seeing & after decoding? The text was double-encoded, run it through the decoder again.
- Named, decimal, and hex entities all decode to the same characters; the source format doesn't matter.
- Decode scraped or exported content before analysis, entity codes will corrupt word counts and searches.
- If you're preparing code samples to DISPLAY on a page, keep them encoded; decode only text meant to be read as characters.
- Emoji often arrive as hex entities like 😀, these decode just like any other entity.