Encoding & URL

HTML Entity Encoder / Decoder

Free online tool · runs in your browser

Escape and unescape HTML entities.

  1. 1Enter text with special characters.
  2. 2Encode for safe HTML insertion or decode entities.

Free online html entity encoder / decoder

Escape HTML special characters to entities and decode entities back to plain text. Convert <, >, &, and quotes so snippets are safe to show in markup, or unescape stored entities for editing. This HTML escape/unescape tool runs locally and covers common named and numeric entities.

How to use HTML Entity Encoder / Decoder

  1. Enter text with special characters.
  2. Encode for safe HTML insertion or decode entities.

Limitations

  • Covers common entities; exotic numeric entities may vary by browser.

Example

Input

<div>

Output

&lt;div&gt;

Frequently Asked Questions

What does HTML escaping do?

It turns characters like < into &lt; so browsers display them as text instead of treating them as tags.

Does this prevent XSS?

Escaping output is one defense. Always sanitize untrusted HTML before rendering; this tool is not a full sanitizer.

Common example?

`<` becomes `&lt;` and `&` becomes `&amp;`.

Is HTML Entity Encoder / Decoder free to use?

Yes. HTML Entity Encoder / Decoder on ShadowReference is free, with no account, no watermarks, and no server-side processing.

Does this tool send my data to a server?

No. All processing happens locally in your browser. Your input never leaves your device.