Regex Escape / Unescape

Building a regular expression from a variable or user input is a classic source of bugs. Characters like the dot, question mark, and parentheses all mean something special to a regex engine, so a search term like "file (1).txt" will not match what you expect — and can even throw an error or create a security hole known as regex injection. Escaping fixes this by backslash-prefixing every special character, producing a pattern that matches your text literally and safely. This tool escapes and unescapes strings instantly as you type. It even verifies the result: when you escape a string, it confirms the generated pattern actually matches your original input, so you can trust the output. Everything runs in your browser with no data leaving your device.

The tool works in both directions. Escape mode turns a literal string into a regex-safe pattern — ideal when you are constructing a dynamic RegExp in JavaScript, Python, or any language, or feeding a search term into a find-and-replace. Unescape mode does the reverse, stripping the backslashes so you can read the plain text that an escaped pattern represents. A one-click swap lets you flip between the two, and the verification badge gives you confidence that an escaped pattern is correct. Whether you are hardening a search feature, debugging a pattern, or just learning how regex escaping works, this is the fastest way to get it right.