HTML Decoder
Convert HTML entities back to readable text — named and numeric.
The HTML Decoder reverses HTML entity encoding, turning <b>Hello</b> back into <b>Hello</b> as literal text — and emoji encoded as 😀 back into 😀. Named entities and decimal/hex numeric entities are both handled.
Decoding is the tool for cleaning scraped content, inspecting email HTML, debugging encoded strings in JSON APIs, and reading source where entities replaced every special character. Paste the encoded text and the human-readable version appears.
The decoder understands the common named entities plus arbitrary numeric and hex references, which covers virtually all real-world encoded content. Runs entirely in your browser.
How to use the HTML Decoder
- Paste the encoded HTML or entity-laden text.
- Read the decoded result instantly.
- Copy the readable text.
- Check that ampersands, quotes and emoji came back correctly.
- Clear and decode the next string.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between named and numeric entities?
Named entities use readable names (& for &), numeric entities use decimal (&) or hex (&) code points. Both represent the same character; the decoder accepts all three forms.
Will this decode every HTML entity?
All named entities in common use plus any numeric reference. The full HTML5 named-entity set runs to thousands; this tool covers the standard ones and falls back gracefully on unknowns.
Why does my text decode but show — garbage?
That is a character-encoding mismatch — the original text was UTF-8 but read as Latin-1 somewhere. Re-encode the source correctly before decoding; entity decoding itself is lossless.
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