JSON Unescape & Cleaner
Remove backslashes, fix escaped quotes, and clean up stringified JSON into valid, readable JSON.
\" → " and \\ → \", &, <, >Frequently Asked Questions
\"), making the output human-unreadable and unusable until it is unescaped.
{"data":"{\"id\":1}"}); payment gateway transaction logs; PHP json_encode() inside another json_encode(); JavaScript JSON.stringify() called twice; database-stored JSON; copied terminal/debug output.
\\\"id\\\". This tool handles multiple levels — it repeatedly unescapes until it reaches valid parseable JSON.
JSON.stringify(), and that resulting string is then stored inside another JSON field — so the inner quotes and backslashes get escaped again. It also occurs when logging frameworks or database drivers escape the string before storing it, or when a JSON payload is passed through HTTP form encoding and then JSON-encoded again. The fix is to serialize only once, or to deserialize the extra layer before processing.
\" (double quote), \\ (backslash), \/ (forward slash — optional), \n (newline), \r (carriage return), \t (tab), \b (backspace), \f (form feed), and \uXXXX (Unicode code point). These are the only valid escape sequences in JSON — unlike JavaScript strings, \0, \s, and hex escapes (\x41) are not valid JSON.
{"key": "value"}. A JSON string is that structure serialized into text — a string of characters that represents the object. When you call JSON.stringify(obj) you get a JSON string. When you call JSON.parse(str) you get back the object. Problems arise when a JSON string is stored inside another JSON string — it looks like "{\"key\":\"value\"}" with escaped quotes, which is what this tool removes.
JSON.parse(str) to deserialize — convert a JSON string into a JavaScript object so you can access its properties. Use JSON.stringify(obj) to serialize — convert a JavaScript object into a JSON string for storage, transmission, or logging. A common bug is calling JSON.stringify on a value that is already a string, which adds an extra layer of escaping. Always check typeof value before serializing if the input source is uncertain.
\uXXXX escape represents a Unicode character using its four-digit hexadecimal code point. For example, é is é and 中 is 中. JSON is Unicode-native — you can include any Unicode character directly in a string, but some serializers escape all non-ASCII characters to \uXXXX for ASCII-safe transport. For characters outside the Basic Multilingual Plane (code points above U+FFFF), JSON uses surrogate pairs: two \uXXXX sequences (a high surrogate followed by a low surrogate). Both forms are valid and semantically identical.
JSON.parse('"…"') (wrap in single quotes and include the outer double quotes). For command-line debugging, pipe the log line through jq -r '.' or use python3 -c "import json,sys; print(json.loads(sys.stdin.read()))". For recurrently escaped payloads in your codebase, add a middleware logging step that deserializes before logging rather than storing the raw serialized string.
About This JSON String Unescaper
This free JSON string unescaper converts a JSON-escaped string — containing \\n, \\", \\t, and other backslash sequences — back to its original readable form. Paste a raw JSON string value (including the surrounding quotes) and see the unescaped result.
JSON strings that have been serialised twice or embedded inside another string often contain double-escaped sequences that are difficult to read. This tool removes one layer of escaping to reveal the actual content.
When to use this tool
- Reading double-escaped JSON from log files or error outputs
- Inspecting error messages embedded inside JSON strings
- Debugging API responses that contain escaped newlines
- Extracting readable content from serialised nested JSON payloads
Standards & References
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