JSON Escape Tool

What is JSON Escaping?

JSON strings have strict rules about special characters. Certain characters must be "escaped" with a backslash to be included in a JSON string. This tool automatically converts raw text into a properly escaped JSON string value.

Characters That Need Escaping

The JSON specification requires these characters to be escaped:

Example

Raw text:

Hello "World"
Line 2 with	tab

After escaping:

"Hello \"World\"\nLine 2 with\ttab"

When to Use This Tool

• Building JSON manually — When concatenating strings into JSON
• Embedding text in JSON — Multi-line content, quotes in values
• API request bodies — Ensuring special characters don't break requests
• Configuration values — File paths with backslashes
• Debug JSON issues — Finding problematic characters

Escaping vs Stringify

This tool escapes a raw string. If you want to convert an entire JavaScript object to a JSON string, use JSON Stringify instead. The difference:

• Escape: raw text → escaped string value
• Stringify: JavaScript object → complete JSON

Options Explained

Wrap in quotes

Enable this to get a complete JSON string value with surrounding quotes. Disable it if you only need the escaped content to insert into an existing JSON structure.

Escape Unicode

When enabled, non-ASCII characters (é, 中, 🎉) are converted to \uXXXX format. This ensures compatibility with systems that don't support UTF-8, though modern JSON parsers handle Unicode natively.

Escaping in Code

In most cases, you should use your language's JSON library instead of manual escaping:

JavaScript

// Don't do this:
const json = '{"name": "' + name + '"}';

// Do this instead:
const json = JSON.stringify({ name: name });

// Or just the string:
const escaped = JSON.stringify(text);

Python

import json

# Escape a string
escaped = json.dumps(text)

# Build complete JSON
data = json.dumps({"name": text})

Why use libraries?

JSON libraries handle all edge cases correctly — Unicode, control characters, and encoding issues. Manual string building is error-prone and can create security vulnerabilities.

Common Mistakes

Forgetting to escape backslashes

Windows file paths like C:\Users\Name need double backslashes:C:\\Users\\Name

Not escaping quotes

A value containing " breaks the JSON structure unless escaped as \"

Raw newlines in strings

Multi-line strings must use \n — literal newlines are invalid in JSON strings

Related Tools

• JSON Unescape — Reverse: convert escaped strings back to raw text
• JSON Stringify — Convert objects to JSON strings
• JSON Validator — Validate your JSON after building it
• Common JSON Mistakes — Avoid escaping errors

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between escape and stringify?

Escape converts raw text into a valid JSON string value. Stringify converts an entire JavaScript object into a JSON string. Use escape for embedding text; use stringify for converting objects.

Do I need to escape forward slashes?

No. Forward slashes (/) are valid in JSON strings without escaping. Some tools escape them as \/ for HTML compatibility, but it's optional.

How do I escape Unicode characters?

Enable the "Escape Unicode" option to convert characters like é to\u00e9. This is only needed for legacy systems — modern JSON parsers handle UTF-8 natively.