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JSON Escape and Unescape Online: Safely Handle JSON Strings
JSON escaping converts special characters into a form that can safely appear inside a JSON string. Quotes, backslashes, tabs, and line breaks need careful handling when JSON is embedded in JavaScript, HTML, logs, configuration files, or another API payload.
Open the JSON Escape and Unescape tool →
What does JSON escape mean?
In a JSON string, a quotation mark is written as \", a backslash as \\, and a line break as \n. Escaping preserves the intended text while preventing a quote or control character from ending the string early.
Escape versus unescape
- Escape: prepare ordinary text to be placed safely inside a JSON string.
- Unescape: turn sequences such as
\nand\"back into readable characters.
Use the online tool when you are debugging a nested payload, preparing a test fixture, or moving a JSON string between an API response and source code. It processes the input in your browser, which is useful for private development data.
Escape is not the same as prettifying
Escaping changes how characters are represented inside a string. Prettifying changes whitespace and indentation around JSON objects and arrays. For readable structured data, use the JSON prettifier; for searching and inspecting nested records, use the JSON viewer.
JavaScript example
JSON.stringify(text) creates a valid quoted JSON string with the required escapes. JSON.parse(value) can decode a complete JSON string. The JSON escape tool is convenient when you need to see or copy the transformed text directly.
Common mistakes
- Escaping an entire JSON object when you only needed to escape one string value.
- Adding backslashes twice when a value is already encoded.
- Confusing a JSON string containing JSON with the underlying JSON object.
- Using single quotes and comments in standard JSON, which does not support them.