Strip Html Tags

Remove all HTML tags from a block of markup and get clean plain text, keeping the readable content. No signup. Ideal for cleaning copied web content, emails and CMS exports.

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This tool strips HTML tags from text, leaving clean plain text with the markup removed but the readable content intact. Paste HTML or text copied from a web page, and get back just the words without the tags, attributes and code. No account, no install, so you can clean web content, email source or CMS exports on any device in your browser in seconds.

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How to Strip HTML Tags Step by Step
What HTML Tags Are and Why You Would Remove Them
Stripping Tags Versus Manual Cleanup
Who Needs to Strip HTML Tags
Pro Tips for Clean Plain Text
Common HTML Stripping Mistakes to Avoid
Related Tools You May Need Next
Frequently Asked Questions

How to Strip HTML Tags Step by Step

Paste your HTML or text. Drop the content containing HTML tags into the input box. It might be copied web page source, an email in HTML, a CMS export, or any text cluttered with markup.
Strip the tags. The tool removes all the HTML tags, the angle bracket elements and their attributes, while keeping the actual text content that sits between and around them.
Review the plain text. Check the result, which should be the readable words without any markup. The structure that tags provided, such as paragraphs, becomes plain text with the content preserved.
Handle entities if needed. HTML entities such as the codes for ampersands and quotes may remain as literal codes or be converted to their characters, depending on what you need for your destination.
Copy the clean text. Copy the plain text into your document, spreadsheet, email or wherever you need clean content without HTML, ready to use without markup getting in the way.

Strip HTML tags tool converting markup to plain text

What HTML Tags Are and Why You Would Remove Them

HTML, HyperText Markup Language, is the code that structures every web page, using tags, words wrapped in angle brackets, to mark up content as headings, paragraphs, links, lists, images and more. When you read a web page, your browser interprets these tags to display the content nicely. But the underlying source is full of markup, and when you copy content from the web, that markup often comes along, cluttering the text you actually wanted.

Stripping HTML tags means removing all the markup while keeping the readable text content. A paragraph tag disappears but the paragraph text remains. A link tag is removed but the linked words stay. The result is plain text, the words a human reads, without the code a browser reads. This is exactly what you need when you want the content but not the formatting, or when markup would break the system you are pasting into.

Tags are removed, content is kept. Stripping HTML takes out the angle bracket markup, the paragraph, link and formatting tags, while preserving the actual words between them. The result is clean plain text with the readable content intact. What you lose is the structure and styling, what you keep is the content itself.

There are several reasons to strip HTML. Content management systems and plain text emails need clean text without stray tags. Data processing and analysis work with the text content, not the markup. Copying an article to quote or reformat it means you want the words, not the web page code. And sometimes tags copied invisibly cause formatting chaos when pasted, which stripping resolves by reducing everything to clean, predictable plain text.

A subtlety is the difference between HTML tags and HTML entities. Tags are the angle bracket elements that structure content. Entities are codes like the ones representing an ampersand, a less than sign, or a non breaking space, used to display characters that would otherwise be interpreted as code. Stripping tags removes the elements, but entities may remain as codes and need separate decoding to become the readable characters they represent.

Stripping Tags Versus Manual Cleanup

Method	Strengths	Weaknesses	Best for
This online tool	Instant, removes all tags, keeps content, works on any device	Structure from tags becomes plain text	Quickly cleaning HTML into plain text
Paste as plain text	Built into some apps	Not always available, inconsistent results	A quick paste when the option exists
Manual tag deletion	Full control	Painfully slow and error prone with lots of markup	Removing one or two stray tags
Code editor find and replace	Powerful with regex	Requires regex skill to match tags safely	Developers cleaning markup in bulk

Who Needs to Strip HTML Tags

Content managersSomeone moving content between systems strips the HTML so clean text can be pasted into a CMS, an email, or a document without stray tags breaking the formatting.

Data analystsAn analyst working with web scraped or exported content strips the markup to get the plain text they need for analysis, since tags are noise in text processing.

Writers and editorsA writer quoting or reformatting content copied from the web strips the HTML to get clean words they can restyle in their own document without inherited markup.

Email and newsletter creatorsSomeone preparing a plain text version of an email strips the HTML from the rich version, producing the clean text alternative many email systems require.

Developers cleaning dataA developer processing text that arrived wrapped in HTML strips the tags to extract the content for storage, display or further processing in a system that wants plain text.

Content manager cleaning copied web content into plain text

Pro Tips for Clean Plain Text

Decode entities separately if needed. Stripping tags removes elements but may leave HTML entities as codes. If your text shows codes for ampersands or quotes, you may need to decode those entities separately to get the proper characters.

Convert instead of strip when you want markdown. If you want to keep the structure in a lighter form rather than lose it entirely, our HTML to Markdown tool converts HTML into readable markdown instead of flattening it to plain text.

Clean whitespace after stripping. Removing tags can leave irregular spacing where elements used to be. Run the result through our Whitespace Remover to tidy up the spacing into clean, consistent text.

Strip before pasting into plain text systems. Many systems, plain text emails, certain forms, some databases, do not want HTML. Stripping the tags first prevents the markup from displaying as literal code or breaking the input.

Keep a copy of the original HTML. If you might need the formatting or links later, keep the original HTML before stripping, since the tags and their information are gone once you reduce the content to plain text.

Check that no content was lost. Review the stripped text to confirm all the readable content survived. Occasionally content inside unusual or malformed tags can be affected, so a quick check ensures nothing important disappeared with the markup.

Common HTML Stripping Mistakes to Avoid

Expecting entities to be decoded automatically. Stripping tags removes the elements but may leave entities like the ampersand code as literal text. If you need those as proper characters, decode the entities separately, since tag stripping and entity decoding are different operations.

Losing structure you actually wanted. Stripping flattens everything to plain text, removing paragraphs, headings and lists as structure. If you wanted to keep a lighter version of that structure, convert to markdown instead, which preserves the shape in readable form.

Not cleaning the resulting whitespace. Removed tags can leave odd gaps and blank lines. The stripped text often needs a whitespace tidy up afterward to look clean, so do not assume the raw stripped output is perfectly formatted.

Stripping when you needed the links. Removing tags deletes link elements, so the URLs are lost while the linked words remain as plain text. If the links matter, extract them first or convert to a format that preserves them, rather than stripping them away.

To keep structure in a lighter form, our HTML to Markdown tool converts rather than strips. To tidy the resulting text, the Whitespace Remover cleans spacing, and to pull links out before stripping, the Extract URLs tool captures them.

Clean plain text output after removing HTML tags

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I remove HTML tags from text?

Paste your HTML or text containing markup into the input box, and the tool removes all the HTML tags, the angle bracket elements and their attributes, while keeping the readable text content between them. Copy the resulting clean plain text. This is far faster and more reliable than deleting tags by hand, especially when the content is full of markup copied from a web page or an email.

What is the difference between HTML tags and entities?

HTML tags are the angle bracket elements that structure content, such as paragraph, heading and link tags. HTML entities are codes that represent special characters, like the code for an ampersand or a non breaking space, used because those characters would otherwise be interpreted as markup. Stripping tags removes the elements, but entities may remain as codes and need separate decoding to become the actual characters they represent.

Does stripping HTML keep my text content?

Yes. Stripping HTML removes only the markup, the tags and their attributes, while preserving the readable text content that sits between and around them. So a paragraph loses its tags but keeps its words, and a link loses its tag but keeps the linked text. What you lose is the structure and styling that the tags provided, and what you keep is the actual content itself.

Should I strip HTML or convert it to markdown?

It depends on whether you want to keep the structure. Stripping flattens everything to plain text, removing all formatting. Converting to markdown preserves the structure, headings, lists, links, in a lightweight readable form. If you just need clean words, strip the tags. If you want to retain the document shape without full HTML, convert to markdown instead using a dedicated conversion tool.

Will stripping HTML remove my links?

Stripping removes the link tags, so the clickable links are lost, although the linked text remains as plain words. If the URLs matter to you, extract them before stripping using a URL extraction tool, or convert the HTML to markdown, which keeps links in a readable form. Simply stripping the tags will leave you with the text but without the underlying link destinations.

Why does my stripped text have odd spacing?

Removing tags can leave irregular gaps and blank lines where elements used to be, because the tags occupied space in the structure. The stripped output often benefits from a whitespace cleanup afterward to collapse extra spaces and remove blank lines, producing tidy, consistent plain text. Running the result through a whitespace remover resolves this in one step.

Can I strip HTML from content copied off a web page?

Yes, and it is one of the most common uses. Content copied from a web page frequently carries hidden HTML markup that causes formatting problems when pasted elsewhere. Pasting it into this tool and stripping the tags gives you clean plain text with just the readable content, ready to use in a document, email or system that does not want the markup.

Is the strip HTML tags tool free?

Yes, it is completely free with no account and no usage limit. You can strip HTML from as many pieces of text as you like, as often as you like, at no cost. It runs entirely in your browser on any device, so there is nothing to download or install, and your content is processed locally on your own machine for privacy.