UNQUOTE

Turn escaped JSON strings into a readable tree

Unquote parses JSON stored inside JSON strings and expands it into structured data. Paste an API response or log record to inspect nested objects and arrays without manually removing backslashes. Processing happens locally in your browser, and the expanded result can be copied or exported.

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What is stringified JSON?

An API or log can store a JSON document as the value of a string field. Quotes inside that string are escaped, so a normal formatter still shows the inner document as text. In this example, body contains a JSON string rather than an object.

Before: JSON stored inside the body string
{"body":"{\"user\":{\"id\":42},\"active\":true}"}
After: the string is parsed into an object
{
  "body": {
    "user": { "id": 42 },
    "active": true
  }
}

How to unescape nested JSON

  1. Open Unquote and paste the complete JSON response, or import the local log file.
  2. Parse the input and expand the field that contains stringified JSON.
  3. Inspect the resulting tree, or search for a nested key or value.
  4. Copy the value you need, or export the expanded JSON or JSONL.

Unquote recursively parses valid JSON strings across consecutive layers. Ordinary text remains text. If the outer document is invalid, inspect its parse error first; unescaping does not repair arbitrary malformed JSON.

Why not remove every backslash?

Backslashes carry information. Escaped quotes, line breaks, Unicode escapes, and literal backslashes have different meanings. Replacing every backslash can corrupt a path or change a string. Parsing each JSON layer follows the format instead of guessing which characters to delete.

JSON unescaping also differs from decoding URL percent escapes or HTML entities. Use it when the value is encoded as JSON, not as a general-purpose text decoder.

How is this different from JSON formatting?

A formatter changes whitespace and indentation while preserving string values. Unquote also expands valid JSON within those strings. This changes the structure of exported data: a field that originally held text can become an object, array, or primitive. Keep the original file if you need the exact encoded response.

JSON number source text is preserved through parsing, copying, and export, including integers larger than JavaScript can represent exactly. You can inspect identifiers without rounding them to a nearby number.