JSON escape / unescape

A JSON string value is wrapped in double quotes, so certain characters inside it must be escaped: double quotes, backslashes and control characters such as newlines and tabs. Forgetting one produces invalid JSON. This tool escapes any text for use inside a JSON string, and unescapes JSON string content back into plain text.

How to use it

1. Paste plain text and escape it to get a JSON-safe string.
2. Or paste an escaped string and unescape it to read the original text.

Example

Plain text over two lines:

He said "hi"
Path: C:\temp

Escaped for JSON:

He said \"hi\"\nPath: C:\\temp

The quotes become \", the line break becomes \n and the single backslash becomes \\.

JSON escape sequences

• \" double quote and \\ backslash
• \n newline, \r carriage return, \t tab
• \b backspace and \f form feed
• \uXXXX any Unicode character by its UTF-16 code unit, such as \u00e9 for é
• The forward slash may be escaped as \/ but does not need to be.

Common situations

• Putting a multi-line message, SQL query or HTML snippet into a JSON config or API body.
• Reading log lines where JSON was double-encoded, such as a string full of \".
• Single quotes never need escaping in JSON.

In code, prefer JSON.stringify() or your language's JSON library instead of escaping by hand.