✨ Code Beautifier & Formatter
Paste messy code and get clean, consistently indented output across seven languages: JSON, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, SQL, and PHP. The beautifier parses each format, fixes common formatting problems, and renders a foldable view so you can collapse blocks and focus on the section that matters. All processing stays in your browser, keeping your code completely private.
What Is This Tool?
Code Beautifier & Formatter is a client-side tool that parses, reformats, and syntax-highlights code across seven languages: JSON, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, SQL, and PHP. When you click Beautify, the tool first detects the language (or uses your explicit selection), then parses the raw code and rebuilds it with proper indentation using your chosen style — 2 spaces, 4 spaces, or tabs. The formatted output is displayed in an interactive foldable view built with JavaScript DOM manipulation and inline styles. Each brace-delimited block or tag pair gets a fold marker (▸/▾) that toggles visibility on click, while Fold All and Unfold All buttons provide global control. A separate Raw Text view strips all formatting for plain-text copying. Because everything runs in the browser, no code is ever uploaded to any server.
How to Use This Tool
- Step 1 — Paste your code into the Input textarea. The tool handles everything from a single-line JSON snippet to multi-kilobyte HTML documents.
- Step 2 — Optionally select the Language from the dropdown. Choose Auto-detect to let the tool infer the language heuristically — it checks for JSON brackets, HTML tags, CSS rules, JavaScript keywords, and SQL statements in order of likelihood.
- Step 3 — Choose your Indentation style: 2 spaces (compact), 4 spaces (common in Python and PHP), or tabs.
- Step 4 — Click "Beautify". The result appears in the Output panel with syntax highlighting and fold markers. Click any ▸ to collapse a block or ▾ to expand it. Use Fold All to collapse everything and Unfold All to expand everything.
- Step 5 — Toggle between Formatted View (interactive, syntax-highlighted) and Raw Text (plain formatted text) using the buttons above the output panel. Click Copy to copy the current view.
Who Needs This Tool?
- API developers — Debugging a REST API often involves reading minified JSON responses. Paste the raw output into this tool to instantly see the structure with collapsible sections for each nested object.
- Front-end developers — When inheriting legacy HTML, CSS, or JavaScript with inconsistent indentation, a single Beautify pass normalises the entire file. The foldable view also helps navigate long template files by collapsing rendered sections.
- Data engineers — Large XML or JSON configuration files (CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure) become manageable when you can fold away sections you do not need to edit. Use Fold All then selectively expand the relevant block.
- SQL analysts — Formatted SQL queries with consistent indentation are far easier to read and debug. Paste a long query to see the
SELECT, FROM, WHERE, and JOIN clauses clearly aligned.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the tool work offline?
Yes. All parsing, formatting, and syntax highlighting is done in JavaScript on the client side. After the page loads, you can disconnect from the internet and the tool continues to function normally.
How does auto-detection work?
The tool applies a series of heuristic regex checks: JSON is detected by leading [ or {, HTML by angle-bracket tags with matching close tags, CSS by rule blocks or @ directives, JavaScript by functional keywords (function, const, =>), and SQL by uppercase clause keywords (SELECT, FROM, etc.). If unsure, it defaults to your explicit selection.
Can I format code from a file on my computer?
While there is no file-upload button, you can open any text file in your editor, copy its contents (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C), and paste them directly into the input area. The workflow is identical once the code is in the textarea.
Why does my formatted code look different from what I expected?
Each language has its own parser. JSON and XML produce consistently perfect results because they follow strict syntax rules. CSS and JavaScript formatting depends on the parser's ability to correctly identify blocks and statements. If the input has syntax errors, the output may be misaligned — try fixing errors first or using a language-specific linter.
About These Code Beautifiers
Code beautifiers solve a problem every developer encounters sooner or later: unreadable code. Whether you're copy-pasting a JSON response from an API, pulling CSS out of a browser inspector, or untangling a minified JavaScript bundle, the raw text is almost always poorly formatted. Indentation is missing, braces stack without line breaks, and nested structures become visual noise. A code beautifier takes that tangled mess and restructures it with consistent indentation, logical line breaks, and clear nesting so you can actually read and understand what you're looking at.
This tool goes beyond basic formatting by adding code folding, a feature you typically only see inside desktop code editors. Once your code is beautified, every brace-delimited block, tag pair, or SQL clause group becomes collapsible. Click a fold marker to hide a section you don't need to look at right now, or hit "Fold All" to collapse everything and scan the high-level structure at a glance. It's the difference between scrolling through 500 lines of JSON and seeing twelve top-level keys you can expand one at a time.
How to Choose the Right Tool
- JSON Beautifier: Paste minified API responses, config files, or environment variables. The formatter fixes trailing commas, adds proper nesting, and makes deeply nested objects scannable. Essential for anyone working with REST APIs or cloud configuration.
- HTML Formatter: Re-indent HTML that was compressed for transport or written without consistent spacing. Handles self-closing tags, void elements, and deeply nested component trees. Useful for cleaning up generated markup from page builders or email templates.
- CSS Beautifier: Takes minified or compressed stylesheets and restores readable formatting with each property on its own line. Helps when debugging layout issues in third-party CSS or reviewing styles extracted from the browser.
- JavaScript Formatter: Parses function bodies, arrow expressions, and callback chains into properly indented blocks. Handles template literals, regex patterns, and string escaping without breaking the output. Great for reading obfuscated or bundled code.
- XML Formatter: Adds consistent indentation to XML documents, config files, and data feeds. Correctly handles self-closing tags, processing instructions, and CDATA sections. Handy for SOAP APIs, RSS feeds, and Maven/Gradle build files.
- SQL Formatter: Breaks long queries into readable lines with each clause (SELECT, FROM, WHERE, JOIN) on its own level. Makes complex multi-table joins and subqueries much easier to follow and debug.
- PHP Formatter: Adds indentation to PHP scripts, function definitions, and control structures. Useful for reading legacy PHP where formatting was never enforced, or for reviewing server-side code snippets shared in tutorials.
Who Benefits From These Tools
- Web developers: Front-end and back-end developers constantly deal with code from multiple sources. Formatting API responses, cleaning up inherited codebases, and preparing code for documentation all become faster with a browser-based beautifier you can open in one tab.
- Students and learners: When following along with a tutorial that pastes minified code examples, a beautifier makes it possible to actually read and understand the structure. Pair it with the fold feature to step through code block by block instead of facing a wall of text.
- Technical writers: Documentation often requires code snippets to be both readable and compact. Beautify code for clarity, then fold sections to capture only the relevant portion for your guide or blog post.
- DevOps engineers: Cloud configurations (AWS CloudFormation, Kubernetes YAML, Terraform JSON) are frequently distributed in minified format. Quickly expanding them reveals the full structure so you can review, audit, or modify settings without guessing at nesting levels.
- Data analysts: Working with JSON data exports, SQL query logs, or XML data feeds often means staring at unformatted text. A quick beautify pass turns raw data dumps into something you can actually work with.
Privacy and Performance
Every operation in this tool runs entirely in your browser. Code you paste is parsed, formatted, and displayed using client-side JavaScript. Nothing is sent to any server, stored in any database, or logged anywhere. Once you close the tab, all traces of your code are gone. This makes the tool safe to use with sensitive configuration files, proprietary source code, API keys embedded in JSON responses, or any other content you wouldn't want leaving your machine.
Because there's no server round-trip, formatting happens instantly. A 10,000-line JSON file formats in under a second. The fold/unfold interaction is pure DOM manipulation, so toggling sections feels responsive regardless of the total file size. The tool also works offline: after the initial page load, you can disconnect from the internet and continue formatting code without any loss of functionality.