Remove Accents
Strip diacritics and accents from text.
How to Use Remove Accents
- 1Paste your text with accented characters
- 2Accents are stripped in real time
- 3Copy or download the plain text result
About Remove Accents
Remove Accents strips diacritical marks from characters using Unicode NFD normalization followed by removal of combining characters, converting accented letters to their plain ASCII equivalents. For example, é becomes e, ü becomes u, ñ becomes n, ç becomes c, and å becomes a.
This technique works reliably for all Latin-script languages with diacritics including French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Czech, Swedish, and many others. The base letter is always preserved — only the accent mark itself is removed.
All processing runs locally in your browser with no server required. Removing accents is an essential preprocessing step for URL slug generation, creating ASCII-safe identifiers for systems without Unicode support, normalizing text for string comparison, and preparing content for older databases or APIs that do not handle Unicode.
Key Features of Remove Accents
- Removes diacritical marks from all Latin-script accented characters
- Uses Unicode NFD normalization for accurate accent stripping
- Preserves base letters — only accent marks are removed
- Handles French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and more
- Instant real-time processing as you type or paste
- One-click copy button for the plain text output
- Download result as a plain .txt file
- Runs entirely in-browser with no data transmission
Supported Formats
Input Formats
Output Formats
Uses Unicode NFD normalization followed by removal of combining characters (Unicode category Mn). Works for all Latin-script languages. Non-Latin scripts (Arabic, Chinese, etc.) are not affected.
Examples
Normalize French text to ASCII
Remove accents from French text to create a version safe for ASCII-only systems.
Input
café crème brûlée résumé naïve
Output
cafe creme brulee resume naive
Strip diacritics from a German name for a database field
Convert a German name with umlauts to ASCII for storage in a legacy system.
Input
Müller, Björn
Output
Muller, Bjorn
Common Use Cases
- Preprocessing text before URL slug generation to ensure ASCII-safe output
- Normalizing names and text for case-insensitive string comparison
- Converting accented content for storage in legacy systems without Unicode support
- Creating ASCII identifiers from multilingual text for programming
- Preparing text for search indexing in systems that treat é and e as different
- Normalizing user-submitted multilingual text before matching or deduplication
Troubleshooting
Non-Latin characters like Chinese or Arabic being affected
Solution
The tool only removes combining diacritical marks from Latin-script characters. Non-Latin scripts like Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Hebrew do not use combining accent marks and are not affected by this operation.
Expecting ß to become "ss"
Solution
The German sharp S (ß) is not a base letter with a diacritic — it is a distinct character. NFD normalization does not convert ß to "ss". To convert ß, use a Find & Replace operation after removing accents.
Expecting ligatures like æ or œ to be expanded
Solution
Ligatures (æ, œ, Æ, Œ) are single Unicode characters, not base letters with combining marks. They are not split by accent removal. Use Find & Replace to convert ae→æ or œ→oe as needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What languages are supported?
The tool works for all Latin-script languages that use diacritical marks: French (é, è, ê, ç), German (ü, ö, ä), Spanish (ñ, á, é), Portuguese (ã, ç, â), Italian, Polish, Czech, Swedish, Norwegian, and many others.
What exactly is removed — the whole character or just the accent?
Only the diacritical mark (accent) is removed. The base letter is preserved in its ASCII form. For example, é becomes e, not nothing. The letter is kept; the accent mark above it is stripped.
What technique does the tool use?
The tool applies Unicode NFD (Canonical Decomposition) normalization, which splits accented characters into their base letter and combining mark. It then removes all characters in Unicode category Mn (non-spacing marks), leaving only the base letters.
Does it convert ß (German sharp S) to "ss"?
No. ß is a distinct character, not a base letter with a diacritic, and NFD normalization does not decompose it. To convert ß to "ss", use a Find & Replace operation after removing accents from the rest of the text.
Does it affect characters from non-Latin scripts?
No. Non-Latin scripts such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Cyrillic do not use Latin-style combining diacritical marks and are not affected by this operation.
Is there a text length limit?
No. Processing runs locally in your browser using native JavaScript Unicode functions. Documents of any length are processed instantly.
Is my text sent to a server?
No. All processing runs in client-side JavaScript. Your text is never uploaded, stored, or transmitted to any server.
When should I use this instead of the Slug converter?
The Slug converter also removes accents but additionally lowercases text and replaces spaces with hyphens. Use Remove Accents when you only want to strip diacritics while preserving the original case, spacing, and other formatting of your text.