How to use the Text Find & Replace
Find and replace text in four steps:
1
Paste your text
Paste the text you want to modify into the input area, or upload a .txt or .md file.
2
Enter find and replace text
Type the text to find in the Find field and the replacement in the Replace field. Leave Replace empty to delete all matches.
3
Set options and preview
Toggle Case Sensitive or Whole Word Only as needed. Enable 'Preview matches' to see all matches highlighted in amber before replacing.
4
Click Replace All
The button shows the live match count. Click to replace all occurrences and see stats including exact replacement count.
When to use this tool
Use for fast, precise text substitutions across any document:
- →Replacing a variable name across a copied code block before editing it in a document or ticket
- →Substituting placeholder tokens like {{name}} or [COMPANY] in a template with real values
- →Changing a URL, domain name, or API endpoint across a block of configuration text
- →Replacing informal or abbreviated language with formal alternatives before submitting a document
- →Deleting all occurrences of a specific word or phrase by leaving the replacement field empty
- →Swapping brand names or product references throughout a repurposed marketing document
Frequently asked questions
Q:Is matching case-sensitive by default?
No — matching is case-insensitive by default, so searching for 'hello' matches 'Hello', 'HELLO', and 'hello' equally. Enable 'Case Sensitive' to match only the exact case you typed. Case-insensitive mode is the more useful default for most document editing tasks.
Q:What does 'Whole Word Only' mode do?
Whole Word Only restricts matches to occurrences where the search term appears as a complete word — surrounded by word boundaries (spaces, punctuation, or the start/end of a line). For example, searching for 'cat' with Whole Word Only enabled matches 'cat' and 'cat.' but not 'cats', 'concatenate', or 'scat'. This prevents partial word replacements that would corrupt identifiers or compound words.
Q:Can I use this to delete text rather than replace it?
Yes — leave the Replace field completely empty and click Replace All. Every occurrence of the search term is removed from the text, leaving nothing in its place. This is the fastest way to strip a specific word, phrase, or character sequence from a document.
Q:How does the live match preview work?
When 'Preview matches' is enabled and a search term is entered, the left panel switches from the editable textarea to a rendered view with every match highlighted in amber. The match count badge in the toolbar updates in real time as you type. Click anywhere in the preview panel to switch back to the editable textarea to modify the text before replacing.
Q:Is there a limit on how much text I can search and replace within?
No — the tool uses JavaScript's native String.replace() with a global regex flag, which handles documents of any size in milliseconds. All processing runs in your browser with no server round-trip, so there is no size limit and no privacy concern with confidential content.
Q:How is this different from the Regex Find & Replace tool?
Text Find & Replace matches exact literal strings — the search term is treated as plain text with no special meaning for characters like ., *, (, or +. Regex Find & Replace allows pattern-based matching using JavaScript regular expressions, capture groups, and backreferences. Use this tool when you know exactly what string to find; use Regex Find & Replace when you need to match variable patterns like dates, phone numbers, or email addresses.