JSON Formatter

Make messy JSON readable

Paste a wall of minified or hand-edited JSON and this tool re-indents it into a clean, nested layout you can actually read. Need the opposite? Minify collapses it back to the smallest valid form for transport. And if something's broken, Validate pinpoints the error so you're not hunting for a missing comma by eye.

All parsing happens in your browser, so API responses, config files and tokens stay on your machine.

What each button does

• Beautify — re-formats with two-space indentation and line breaks for readability.
• Minify — strips all optional whitespace to produce the most compact valid JSON.
• Validate — confirms the JSON parses, or shows the exact error if it doesn't.

Common JSON mistakes it catches

Most JSON errors come from a handful of habits: a trailing comma after the last item, single quotes instead of double, unquoted keys, or a stray bracket. Because the tool uses a strict parser, it flags these immediately instead of letting them slip through.

How to format JSON, step by step

1. Paste your JSON into the box — a single-line API response, a config file, or something you've hand-edited.
2. Click Beautify to re-indent it with clean two-space nesting so the structure is obvious at a glance.
3. Spot problems fast — if it won't parse, Validate shows the exact error and where it is, so you can fix the stray comma or bracket.
4. Click Minify when you're done to collapse it back to the smallest valid form for sending over the wire or pasting into code.
5. Copy the result. Nothing you paste ever leaves your browser.

Where a JSON formatter fits in your workflow

JSON is the default format for REST APIs, config files (package.json, tsconfig.json), NoSQL documents and log lines. Minified JSON is efficient for machines but painful for humans — a formatter is what turns a 4,000-character single line into something you can scan for the one field that's wrong. Because everything runs locally, it's safe to paste responses that contain tokens, personal data or internal endpoints.

Working with encoded data alongside your JSON? Decode a payload with the Base64 tool, escape query values with the URL encoder, or inspect a token with the JWT decoder. For a deeper primer, read what is a JSON formatter.

Frequently asked questions