How to decode HTML entities
- Paste the entity-riddled text — scraped HTML, RSS content, database exports, API responses. Decoding is live.
- If the result still contains entities, it was double-escaped — copy the output back into the input to decode another level.
- Click Copy output when the text reads cleanly.
Where entity-soup comes from
Every system that stores or transports HTML escapes special characters — and when two of them stack, you get the classic & mess. Common sources: scraping page content, RSS and Atom feeds, WordPress and CMS database exports, JSON APIs that pre-escape their strings, and email templates. The decoder handles all three entity forms — named (é), decimal (é) and hexadecimal (é) — using the browser's own HTML parser in a mode where markup never executes, so it's exactly as accurate as the browser itself.
Frequently asked questions
What are HTML entities?
Text codes for characters with special meaning in HTML: & for &, < for <, for a non-breaking space, and numeric forms like é for é.
Why does my text show & instead of &?
It was escaped twice, usually by two systems in a row. Decode once, and if entities remain, run the output through again.
Does the decoder handle numeric entities?
Yes — decimal (é) and hex (é) references decode alongside all standard named entities.
Is it safe to paste scraped HTML here?
Yes. Tags stay as literal text and scripts never run — decoding happens entirely in your browser and nothing is transmitted.