Skip to tool
FeuTex · free tools runs in-browser no bloat built by LiMiT

Online Regex Converter to Text

Paste a regex pattern and convert it into plain text by unescaping escaped characters (like \.., \n → newline, \u0041A). This is a best‑effort “literal extraction” tool: real regex operators (like .*, +, groups, and classes) are not expanded into matches.

Category: Developer · URL: /tools/online-regex-converter-to-text.html
Privacy: runs locally in your browser. No uploads, no tracking scripts.

How to use

Use it in either direction depending on what you have:

  1. Select Regex → Text (default), paste your pattern (with or without /.../flags).
  2. Optionally enable stripping of /.../flags and ^...$ anchors.
  3. Click Convert and copy the output.
  4. If you need the opposite, switch to Text → Regex to escape special characters so the regex matches your text literally.
Keywords this page targets (natural cluster): online regex converter to text, regex to text converter, convert regex to plain text, unescape regex pattern, regex unescape tool, remove regex escapes, strip regex delimiters /pattern/flags, regex to literal string, convert \\n in regex to newline, decode regex unicode escapes \\u, regex \\Q \\E to text, regex to readable string, turn escaped dot \\. into ., regex to text online, extract literal from regex, convert text to escaped regex, escape string for regex, strip ^ and $ anchors
Secondary intents covered: Unescape a regex pattern into a literal string for display or logging, Strip regex delimiters and flags from /pattern/gi inputs, Decode \n/\t/\r and Unicode escapes (\uXXXX, \u{...}, \xHH), Identify when a pattern contains real regex operators and warn about it, Convert plain text into a regex-safe escaped pattern, Copy the converted output quickly for use in code/config files, Clean up pasted patterns by removing anchors (^ and $) when desired, Keep control characters visible as \n-style escapes for compact output

FAQ

What does “Regex → Text” actually convert?

It unescapes escaped literals (like \..) and decodes common escapes like \n, \xHH, and \uXXXX; it does not generate matches for operators like .* or +.

Will it turn \d or \w into real text?

No—tokens like \d, \w, and backreferences are preserved because they are regex semantics, not literal characters.

Can I paste /pattern/gi and get just the pattern?

Yes—enable “Strip /.../flags” to remove delimiters and ignore the trailing flags.

What is \Q...\E support?

In engines that support it (like PCRE), \Q starts “quote literal mode” and \E ends it; the tool outputs the quoted content as plain text.

Why do I see a warning about regex operators?

If the pattern contains unescaped operators (groups, classes, quantifiers, alternation, etc.), the tool warns because the output can’t represent what the regex matches—only the literal parts.

Can I go from text to a regex that matches it literally?

Yes—switch to “Text → Regex” to escape regex metacharacters so the resulting pattern matches your text exactly.

Is my data sent to a server?

No. The conversion runs locally in your browser and the tool does not make network requests.