About the Remove Special Characters
Special characters such as @, #, ©, arrows and emoji can break file names, database fields, usernames and data imports. This tool removes every character that is not a letter, a number or whitespace.
It understands letters and digits from all languages, so accented letters like “é” and scripts such as Cyrillic, Arabic, Hindi or Chinese are kept. Tick Keep basic punctuation if you want sentences to stay readable while still removing symbols and emoji.
How to use it
- Paste the text you want to clean.
- Decide whether to keep basic punctuation.
- Click Remove Special Characters and copy the result.
Example
Hello, World! ★ Price: $49.99 (20% off) #deal 😀 Café
Hello World Price 4999 20 off deal Café
When to use it
- Creating safe file names or usernames.
- Preparing text for systems that only accept alphanumeric input.
- Removing emoji and decorative symbols from social media text.
- Cleaning survey answers before analysis.
Frequently asked questions
Are accented letters removed?
No. Letters with accents, and letters from non-Latin alphabets, count as letters and are kept. If you need plain ASCII, use Remove Non-ASCII Characters.
Are line breaks kept?
Yes. Spaces, tabs and line breaks are all kept.
What counts as a special character?
Anything that is not a letter, a digit or whitespace. That includes punctuation, currency signs, maths symbols, arrows and emoji.
Is the text I enter kept private?
Yes. The Remove Special Characters runs entirely in your web browser, so your text is never uploaded to or stored on our servers. Like most free websites, TextForge shows ads from Google, which may use cookies. See our Privacy Policy for details.