Search, replace, done, with regex if you need it
You know the Ctrl+H find-and-replace in your text editor? This is that, but in the browser, and with some extras. Paste your text, type what you’re looking for, type what you want to replace it with, and the tool swaps every occurrence. It shows you a match count before you commit, so you know exactly what’s about to change.
The real power is in the options. You can toggle case-sensitive matching, whole word matching (so searching for “the” won’t accidentally hit “other”), and full regex mode with capture group support. That last one turns this into a surprisingly powerful text transformation tool.
Capabilities
- Plain text search, just type the string, no syntax needed
- Case-sensitive toggle for when capitalization matters
- Whole word matching to prevent partial hits inside longer words
- Full JavaScript regex with
$1,$2capture group references in replacements - Live match count so you can see results before applying
- All processing stays in your browser
Using it
Paste your text. Enter the search term and replacement. Toggle whichever options you need. The modified output appears with all replacements applied. Copy it out.
Here’s a concrete example: say you need to redact every email address in a document. Switch on regex mode, search for \b[\w.+-]+@[\w.-]+\.\w{2,}\b, set the replacement to “[REDACTED]”, and every email in your text gets masked. Takes about 10 seconds.
Where this really shines
Code refactoring: renaming a variable across a code snippet is what most people use this for. Turn on whole word matching so count doesn’t accidentally become acnewNameount. Ask me how I know.
Data cleanup: standardizing date formats, phone numbers, or fixing inconsistent naming across a dataset. Regex makes these transformations trivial.
Content migration: swapping old domain names for new ones, updating broken link paths, changing CDN URLs. Paste the content, replace the URLs, paste it back.
Privacy redaction: replacing names, phone numbers, or addresses with placeholders before sharing a document externally.
After making changes, run the before and after through the Text Diff tool to make sure everything looks right. Especially with regex, it’s easy to match more than you intended.
One thing to remember with regex: characters like ., *, +, ?, (, ), [, ] have special meaning. If you want to match a literal period, you need \. not just .
FAQ
What can I do with regex mode?
Pattern-based matching. Find every email address, every phone number, every date in a specific format, anything you can describe with a regular expression. It uses JavaScript’s regex engine.
How does whole word matching work?
It wraps your search term in word boundary markers. So searching for “the” only matches the standalone word “the”, not “other” or “they” or “there.”
Can I reference matched groups in the replacement?
Yes. Wrap parts of your search pattern in parentheses to create capture groups. In the replacement, use $1 for the first group, $2 for the second, etc. Searching (\w+), (\w+) and replacing with $2 $1 swaps “Smith, John” to “John Smith.”
What if there are no matches?
Nothing changes. The output equals the input and the match count shows 0. No error, no drama.
Is my text private?
Completely. All processing happens in your browser. Nothing leaves your device.