Markdown to Plain Text Converter
Strip Markdown formatting and get clean plain text — remove **asterisks**, # headings, and link syntax from ChatGPT output, READMEs, and notes. Free, runs in your browser.
Convert Markdown to plain text
Markdown is great until you paste it somewhere that doesn't render it — and every **, ## and [text](url) shows up as literal clutter. This tool removes the formatting and keeps the words. It's most useful for cleaning up AI chat output (ChatGPT and Claude answers are full of asterisks and pound signs) before pasting into an email, a Google Doc, a form field, a text message, or a CMS that shows raw text.
How it works
Rather than a pile of regex replacements, the tool parses your input into a real Markdown syntax tree (the same marked parser used across this site) and writes out only the text. That means nested formatting like **bold _and italic_**, links inside list items, and tables are handled structurally instead of by guesswork. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
What is removed or changed
| Markdown | Plain-text result |
|---|---|
Headings # Title | Title on its own line, followed by a blank line |
| Bold, italic, strikethrough | The text, without markers |
| Inline code and code blocks | The code text; fences removed (or the block dropped entirely if you untick "Keep code blocks") |
Links [text](url) | text, or text (url) with the URL option |
Images  | The alt text |
| Lists | Bullets become •, numbered items keep their numbers (or both are dropped if unticked); nesting is shown by indentation; task items become [ ] / [x] |
| Blockquotes | The quoted text, without > |
| Tables | One row per line, cells separated by a tab (pastes cleanly into spreadsheets) |
| Horizontal rules, HTML tags | Removed |
Limitations
- Footnote and reference-definition syntax isn't expanded; reference-style links resolve normally, but footnote markers like
[^1]stay as literal text. - Math (
$...$) and Mermaid blocks are not rendered — they pass through as their source text. - Plain text has no way to show emphasis, so that meaning is lost by design. If you need to keep formatting for a chat or wiki tool, use the Slack, Notion, Jira, or Confluence converters instead.
Related tools
- Markdown to HTML — keep formatting, as HTML
- Markdown to Word (.docx) — keep formatting in a Word document
- Markdown to Slack — keep formatting in Slack's mrkdwn
- Word Count & Reading Time — count the words once the markup is gone
- How to remove Markdown formatting from ChatGPT and Claude output