HTML Beautifier & Minifier — Free Online
Pretty-print or minify HTML source. Uses js-beautify (the same library VS Code and Prettier use). Browser-side.
When you need an HTML beautifier
Minified HTML — one long line, no whitespace — is what production sites serve to browsers because it loads fastest. But when you need to read, edit or debug it (View Source on a live page, inspect an exported newsletter template, audit a CMS export), minified HTML is essentially unreadable. A beautifier reverses the minification: adds line breaks, indents nested elements, makes the structure visible to the eye.
Going the other way — minifying authored HTML before deployment — is also useful, though most build pipelines do this automatically. Use Minify mode when you need to embed HTML in a JSON payload, an email template (where bandwidth matters), or any context where transmission size matters more than readability.
Common scenarios
- Reading minified HTML from a production website's View Source.
- Editing newsletter templates that vendors export as minified blobs.
- Debugging a CMS output that produces ugly HTML.
- Preparing HTML for inclusion in code — minify to reduce payload size.
- Comparing HTML diffs — beautifying both versions makes diffs readable.
- Code review for hand-written HTML that needs consistent formatting.
Beautifier options
- Indent — 2 spaces is the modern web standard (matches Prettier, ESLint, VS Code defaults). 4 spaces is older convention. Tab is preferred by some teams.
- Wrap at column — set to 80 or 120 to wrap long lines; 0 leaves lines unwrapped. Wrapping helps in narrow editors but can split attributes across lines.
Tips and best practice
- Beautify before code review — diffs of beautified files are far cleaner than diffs of minified files.
- Don't commit beautified files to production — use minified output, or let your build pipeline minify on deploy.
- For consistent team formatting, agree on indent size and check it into the project linter config.
- Beautified HTML and the rendered output are identical — whitespace in HTML doesn't change rendering (with rare exceptions in
<pre>and table cells).
FAQs
Is anything uploaded?
No. Runs in your browser via js-beautify.
Will it change my HTML semantics?
No — only whitespace and indentation change. Rendered output is identical.
Can it handle script and style blocks?
Yes — they're preserved as-is. For prettier inline JS/CSS, use the JS or CSS-specific beautifiers.