Regex to Strip HTML Tags
Copy the pattern, paste your HTML below, and see every tag it highlights for removal. Below the tester: how it works and the one big warning about parsing HTML with regex.
What this pattern matches
This matches an HTML start or end tag: an opening angle bracket, an optional slash, a tag name, any attributes, and the closing bracket. Replace matches with an empty string to keep just the text.
How it works, part by part
<\/? — the opening < and an optional / for closing tags.
[a-zA-Z] — a tag must start with a letter (so a < b in prose is not caught).
[^>]*> — any attributes up to the closing bracket.
The big warning
Regex cannot truly parse HTML — comments, CDATA, and > inside attribute values will trip it up. For quick cleanup of simple, trusted markup this is fine; for untrusted input use a real HTML parser or sanitizer.
FAQ
Does it remove closing tags too?
Yes. The optional slash means both <div> and </div> match.
Will it strip attributes?
Yes. Everything up to the closing > is part of the match, including href, class, and style.
Is regex safe for untrusted HTML?
No. For security-sensitive stripping use a dedicated sanitizer; regex misses edge cases like comments and quoted brackets.