Removing accents from text - also called stripping diacritics or normalizing Unicode - is a common task when preparing data for file names, URLs, database queries, or systems that do not support special characters. Our free online accent remover converts accented letters like á, ç, ö, and ñ to their plain ASCII equivalents in seconds.
What are Accents and Diacritics?
Diacritics are marks added to letters to modify their pronunciation or to distinguish them from similar characters. Common examples include:
- Acute accent:
á,é,í,ó,ú - Grave accent:
à,è,ì,ò,ù - Circumflex:
â,ê,î,ô,û - Umlaut / diaeresis:
ä,ë,ï,ö,ü - Cedilla:
ç - Tilde:
ã,ñ,õ
Many software systems, file systems, and search engines treat accented characters differently from their base letters, which can cause unexpected sorting, matching, or display issues.
How to Use the Remove Accents Tool
- Paste your accented text - type or paste any text containing diacritical marks into the input field. It can be in any language.
- Process instantly - the output with all accents removed appears in real time as you type or paste.
- Copy the result - click "Copy" to copy the plain-text version to your clipboard.
Common Use Cases
- Generating URL slugs from titles in French, Spanish, Portuguese, or German
- Normalizing names in CSV files or database imports for consistent sorting
- Creating file names compatible with systems that do not support Unicode
- Preparing search index tokens for ASCII-only full-text search systems
- Sanitizing user input in forms that require plain ASCII
- Converting text for use in programming identifiers and variable names
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens to characters that have no ASCII equivalent, like ß or æ?
The tool uses Unicode normalization (NFD decomposition) to separate base letters from their diacritical marks, then removes the marks. Characters like the German ß may be left as-is or converted to ss depending on the implementation.
Does it remove all special characters, or just accents? It removes diacritical marks from letters (accents, umlauts, tildes, cedillas, etc.) but leaves other special characters like punctuation, currency symbols, and emoji untouched.
Can I use this for file renaming?
Yes. This is one of the most common use cases - converting Ação Coletiva.docx to Acao Coletiva.docx for compatibility with FAT32 or older file systems.
Does it work on Asian or Arabic characters? No. The tool specifically targets Latin-script diacritical marks. Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and other non-Latin scripts use a fundamentally different encoding system that is not affected.
Use the Remove Accents tool free, no sign-up required.