🧹 Strip HTML Tags
By ToolNimba Editorial Team · Updated 2026-06-19
Paste HTML above, then press Strip tags.
This tool strips every HTML tag from text you paste and hands back clean plain text. Paste a snippet, a full page source, or a block copied from a rich editor, then press Strip tags. You can collapse extra whitespace, keep sensible line breaks for block elements like paragraphs and list items, and copy the result with one click. Everything runs in your browser, so the content you paste never leaves the page.
What is the Strip HTML Tags?
HTML markup is built from tags: small instructions wrapped in angle brackets, such as a paragraph tag or a strong tag, that tell a browser how to display content. When you copy text out of a web page, an email, or a content management system, those tags often come along for the ride. Stripping them leaves only the words a reader actually sees, which is what you usually want when moving text into a plain document, a spreadsheet cell, a database field, or a code comment.
The most reliable way to remove tags is to let the browser parse the markup the same way it would when rendering a page, then read back only the text content. This tool uses the built in DOMParser for exactly that, which is far safer than a single find and replace because it handles nested tags, attributes that contain angle brackets, and malformed markup gracefully. Content inside script and style tags is dropped entirely, since that code is never meant to be read as text.
A naive approach that just deletes anything between a less than sign and a greater than sign can break on edge cases. For example, an attribute value or a comparison written inside the text can confuse a simple pattern, and entities like the ampersand code for an ampersand would be left raw. Parsing the document properly decodes those entities, so an encoded ampersand or angle bracket comes back as the real character. The optional whitespace collapse then tidies the spacing that markup often leaves behind.
When to use it
- Cleaning text pasted from a website or rich editor before dropping it into a plain document or spreadsheet.
- Extracting readable copy from an HTML email or newsletter for proofreading or word counts.
- Removing tags from a content management system export so the raw words can be re-imported elsewhere.
- Sanitising a snippet for a code comment, commit message, or chat where markup would only get in the way.
How to use the Strip HTML Tags
- Paste your HTML into the input box.
- Leave Collapse extra whitespace ticked to tidy spacing, or untick it to keep the original spacing.
- Leave Keep line breaks for block tags ticked so paragraphs and list items stay on separate lines.
- Press Strip tags to see the plain text result.
- Press Copy to put the clean text on your clipboard.
Formula & method
Worked examples
A simple paragraph with bold and a link.
- Input: a p tag wrapping "Hello", a strong tag around "world", and an anchor tag linking the word "here".
- The parser reads the visible text from each element and ignores the tags and the href attribute.
- Block tag p adds a line break around the paragraph, then trimming removes it as the only line.
Result: Hello world here
A two item bulleted list with extra spacing.
- Input: a ul tag containing two li tags, "Apples" and "Oranges", with newlines and indentation between them.
- Each li is a block tag, so a line break is inserted around each item.
- Collapse whitespace trims each line and squashes the blank runs to at most one, leaving a single blank line between the two items.
Result: Apples Oranges
How common tags are handled
| Tag or content | Result after stripping |
|---|---|
| Inline tags (strong, em, span, a) | Removed, the wrapped text is kept inline |
| Block tags (p, div, li, h1 to h6) | Removed, a line break is added when the option is on |
| Line break tag (br) | Replaced with a newline |
| Script and style tags | Tag and inner code removed entirely |
| HTML entities (ampersand code, angle codes) | Decoded to the real character |
Common mistakes to avoid
- Expecting attributes or alt text to be kept. Stripping tags keeps only the visible text. Values like an image alt attribute or a link href are part of the markup, not the text content, so they are removed. Copy those separately if you need them.
- Leaving entities encoded. A naive regex strip can leave entities such as the ampersand code or a non breaking space raw. This tool parses the document so those decode to real characters, but be aware of the difference if you use another method.
- Forgetting that script and style content is dropped. If you paste a full page and wonder where some text went, check it was not inside a script or style tag. Code in those tags is intentionally removed, since it is never reader facing text.
Glossary
- HTML tag
- An instruction wrapped in angle brackets, such as a paragraph or strong tag, that marks up how content is structured or displayed.
- Plain text
- Text with no markup or formatting codes, just the characters a reader sees.
- DOMParser
- A built in browser tool that turns an HTML string into a document object so its text can be read reliably.
- HTML entity
- A coded sequence, like the ampersand code, used to represent a character that would otherwise have special meaning in HTML.
- Block element
- An element such as a paragraph, div, or list item that normally starts on its own line when rendered.
Frequently asked questions
How do I strip HTML tags from text?
Paste your HTML into the input box and press Strip tags. The tool parses the markup and returns only the visible text, which you can then copy with one click.
Does this remove the content inside script and style tags?
Yes. Code inside script and style tags is removed entirely, since it is never meant to be read as text. Only reader facing words are kept.
Will it keep my paragraphs on separate lines?
If you leave Keep line breaks for block tags ticked, block elements like paragraphs and list items each get a line break, so the structure is preserved. Untick it to flatten everything onto fewer lines.
Is my pasted content sent anywhere?
No. The tool runs entirely in your browser using the built in HTML parser. Nothing you paste is uploaded or stored, so it is safe for private content.
Why use this instead of a simple find and replace?
A single find and replace can break on nested tags, attributes containing angle brackets, and HTML entities. Parsing the document the way a browser does handles those cases and decodes entities to real characters.
What does Collapse extra whitespace do?
It squashes runs of spaces and tabs into single spaces, trims each line, and reduces multiple blank lines to at most one, which tidies the loose spacing that markup often leaves behind.