Software

HTML Entity Decoder

Decode HTML entities into readable text with our free HTML Entity Decoder. Convert entities such as &, <, >, and numeric character references back into their original characters quickly and easily.

AffiliateVerse Editorial Aug 30, 2026 5 min read
HTML Entity Decoder

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Overview

HTML Entity Decoder An HTML Entity Decoder is an online tool that converts encoded HTML entities back into their original characters. It is useful for developers, web designers, content creators, and anyone working with HTML-encoded text.

For example, an encoded string such as &amp; can be decoded back to &, while &lt; becomes < and &gt; becomes >.

Our free HTML Entity Decoder makes it easy to decode HTML entities without writing code or manually looking up character references.

What Are HTML Entities? HTML entities are special character representations used in HTML documents. They allow characters that have a special meaning in HTML, or characters that are difficult to type, to be represented safely in HTML source code.

Some common examples include:

&amp; → & &lt; → < &gt; → > &quot; → " &apos; → ' &nbsp; → non-breaking space HTML also supports numeric character references, such as &#65;, which represents the letter A.

What Does an HTML Entity Decoder Do? An HTML Entity Decoder takes encoded HTML text and converts the entities back into their corresponding characters.

For example:

Encoded: Hello &amp; welcome to our website!

Decoded: Hello & welcome to our website!

This can be particularly useful when text has been copied from a database, API response, webpage, or application where HTML encoding has been applied.

How to Use an HTML Entity Decoder Using the tool is simple:

Copy your HTML-encoded text. Paste it into the decoder. Click the Decode button. Copy the decoded result. The tool can save time when working with long strings containing multiple HTML entities.

Common HTML Entities Here are some frequently encountered HTML entities:

Entity Character Description &amp; & Ampersand &lt; < Less-than sign &gt; > Greater-than sign &quot; " Double quotation mark &apos; ' Apostrophe &nbsp; Space Non-breaking space &copy; © Copyright symbol &reg; ® Registered trademark &trade; ™ Trademark symbol Named vs. Numeric HTML Entities HTML entities can be represented using names or numbers.

A named entity uses a predefined name, such as:

&copy;

A decimal numeric character reference uses a number:

&#169;

A hexadecimal numeric character reference uses hexadecimal notation:

&#xA9;

All three can represent the copyright symbol ©.

Why Decode HTML Entities? There are several reasons you may need to decode HTML entities.

Make encoded text readable. Clean data copied from HTML documents. Process content received from APIs or databases. Debug HTML and web applications. Convert encoded content before further processing. Inspect text during development and testing. HTML Entity Decoder for Developers Developers often encounter HTML entities while working with web applications, APIs, databases, templates, and content management systems.

For example, an API may return:

Tom &amp; Jerry

After decoding, the readable text becomes:

Tom & Jerry

An HTML Entity Decoder can make this conversion much faster when you are troubleshooting or processing content.

HTML Entity Decoding vs. Encoding HTML encoding converts special characters into HTML-safe representations.

For example:

& → &amp;

HTML decoding performs the reverse operation:

&amp; → &

Both processes are useful when displaying or processing content safely in web applications.

Frequently Asked Questions What is an HTML Entity Decoder? An HTML Entity Decoder converts HTML entities such as &amp;, &lt;, and &gt; back into their corresponding characters.

How do I decode HTML entities? Paste the encoded HTML text into an HTML Entity Decoder and run

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