Detect invisible and look-alike characters in text
Paste text and reveal zero-width spaces, bidirectional overrides and Cyrillic look-alikes hiding inside it โ the characters behind broken layouts, failed comparisons and phishing domains. It checks on your device (0 uploads, works offline).
How to use it
- Paste the suspect text.
- Each hidden character is listed with its position, code point and name.
- Copy the cleaned version, with invisibles removed and look-alikes normalised.
FAQ
How do I find hidden characters in text for free?
Paste the text and this page lists every zero-width, bidirectional and homoglyph character with its Unicode code point, checked entirely in your browser with no upload. It also gives you a cleaned copy with those characters removed or replaced.
What is a homoglyph?
A character that looks like another but isn't โ for example a Cyrillic "ะฐ" that renders identically to a Latin "a". They are used in phishing domains and to sneak text past filters; this tool flags them.
Is my text uploaded?
No. Detection runs locally and nothing is stored; it works offline.
Why does copy-pasted text sometimes contain these?
Rich editors, PDFs, terminals and some websites insert zero-width and non-breaking characters for formatting. They are invisible but real, and they break string comparisons and search.
Limits
Covers the common invisible characters and a curated set of Cyrillic/Greek look-alikes, not every possible homoglyph in Unicode.
Related
The word counter separates code points from UTF-16 units; remove line breaks and the case converter handle other paste cleanup.
Bookmark this page (Ctrl+D, or โD on Mac) or install the app โ it works offline the next time you need it.