Remove Accent

About Remove Accent

Welcome to our Remove Accent Tool, a free online utility that instantly removes accents and diacritical marks from text. Whether you need to create URL-friendly slugs, generate safe filenames, ensure database compatibility, or prepare text for systems that only accept ASCII characters, this tool makes it easy to convert accented characters (é, ñ, ü, ç, etc.) to their plain equivalents (e, n, u, c, etc.).

What are Accents and Diacritics?

Accents (also called diacritics or diacritical marks) are symbols added to letters to modify their pronunciation or distinguish between words. These marks appear in many languages around the world and serve important linguistic functions. Common types include:

• Acute accent (´): é, á, ó (French: café, Spanish: José)
• Grave accent (`): è, à, ù (French: crème, Italian: città)
• Circumflex (^): ê, â, ô (French: forêt, Portuguese: você)
• Tilde (~): ñ, ã, õ (Spanish: mañana, Portuguese: São Paulo)
• Umlaut/diaeresis (¨): ü, ö, ä (German: München, Köln)
• Cedilla (¸): ç (French: français, Portuguese: ação)
• Ring (°): å (Swedish: Malmö, Danish: København)
• Stroke (/): ø, ł (Norwegian: Tromsø, Polish: Łódź)

Why Remove Accents?

1. URL-Friendly Slugs

Web URLs work best with ASCII characters. Converting "Café París" to "Cafe Paris" creates clean, compatible URLs like cafe-paris instead of problematic encoded versions.

2. Filename Compatibility

Many operating systems and file transfer protocols have issues with accented characters in filenames. Removing accents prevents file corruption, upload errors, and cross-platform compatibility problems.

3. Database Systems

Some legacy databases don't support Unicode properly or use character sets that can't handle diacritics. Converting to ASCII ensures reliable storage and retrieval.

4. Search Optimization

Making text searchable across different keyboards and input methods. Users searching for "resume" might not type "résumé", so having accent-free versions improves search results.

5. Email Addresses and Usernames

Email systems and many platforms don't allow accented characters in usernames. "José García" becomes "[email protected]".

6. Programming Identifiers

Variable names, function names, and identifiers in most programming languages must use ASCII characters without diacritics.

7. Legacy System Integration

Older systems, APIs, and software often expect ASCII-only text and may fail or corrupt data when encountering accented characters.

How This Tool Works

Our accent removal tool uses Unicode normalization (specifically NFD - Canonical Decomposition) to separate base characters from their combining diacritical marks, then filters out the marks while preserving the base letters.

1. Enter your text: Paste or type text containing accents into the input field. You can use the example buttons to see how different languages are converted.
2. Click Remove Accents: The tool processes your text using Unicode normalization to separate and remove all diacritical marks.
3. Review results: See your accent-free text along with detailed statistics showing how many characters were changed and which specific conversions were made.
4. Copy the result: Click the Copy Result button to copy the converted text to your clipboard, ready to use anywhere.

Common Accent Conversions

French Accents

• é, è, ê, ë → e
• à, â → a
• ô → o
• ù, û, ü → u
• ç → c
• ï, î → i
• ÿ → y

Spanish Accents

• á, à → a
• é → e
• í → i
• ó → o
• ú, ü → u
• ñ → n

German Umlauts

• ä → a
• ö → o
• ü → u
• ß → ss (special case)

Portuguese Accents

• á, â, ã, à → a
• é, ê → e
• í → i
• ó, ô, õ → o
• ú → u
• ç → c

Important Considerations

Meaning May Change

In some languages, removing accents can change word meanings:

• Spanish: año (year) → ano (anus)
• Spanish: él (he) → el (the)
• French: où (where) → ou (or)
• Portuguese: está (is) → esta (this)

Context Is Key

While technical systems may require accent removal, the surrounding context usually makes the meaning clear to human readers. Use this tool when technical compatibility is more important than linguistic precision.

Not Suitable for All Use Cases

Don't remove accents when:

• Preserving proper spelling in documents, articles, or formal writing
• Names and proper nouns where accuracy matters
• Academic or linguistic work
• Official documents and legal text
• Content where meaning distinction is critical

Use Cases and Examples

Creating URL Slugs

Blog title: "Découvrez les cafés de París"

Converted: "Decouvrez les cafes de Paris"

URL slug: decouvrez-les-cafes-de-paris

Generating Filenames

Original: "Présentation française été 2024.pdf"

Converted: "Presentation francaise ete 2024.pdf"

Email Address Creation

Name: "José María González"

Email: "[email protected]"

Database Usernames

Original: "Müller_Björn"

Username: "Muller_Bjorn"

Supported Languages

This tool works with any language using Latin-based alphabets with diacritical marks, including but not limited to:

• French: café, crème, Noël, français
• Spanish: mañana, José, niño, Barcelona
• Portuguese: São Paulo, ação, você, Coração
• German: München, Köln, Größe, Straße
• Italian: città, perché, così, caffè
• Polish: Łódź, Kraków, Gdańsk, Wrocław
• Czech: Brno, Plzeň, Ostrava, Příbram
• Turkish: İstanbul, Çanakkale, Şişli, Güneş
• Vietnamese: Hà Nội, Sài Gòn, phở, bún
• Romanian: București, șțâăî
• Swedish/Norwegian/Danish: Malmö, København, Tromsø

Alternative Solutions

When to Keep Accents

Modern web standards (UTF-8 encoding) fully support accented characters. If your system supports Unicode:

• Use proper UTF-8 encoding for databases and web pages
• Configure your web server to handle Unicode URLs
• Use URL encoding (percent-encoding) for special characters in URLs
• Store original names with accents and create separate slug/search fields

Smart Conversions

Some systems use context-aware conversions:

• German ß → ss (not just s)
• Danish/Norwegian æ → ae (not just a)
• Icelandic þ → th
• These require specialized transliteration beyond simple accent removal

Privacy and Security

Your privacy is important to us:

• All text processing happens on our secure server
• We do not store, log, or share your input text
• No registration or account creation required
• No cookies used for tracking
• Data is processed and immediately discarded

Frequently Asked Questions

What are accents and diacritics?

Accents and diacritics are marks added to letters to change their pronunciation or meaning. Common examples include é (acute accent), ñ (tilde), ü (umlaut), ç (cedilla), and ô (circumflex). These marks are used in many languages including French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and others.

Why would I need to remove accents from text?

Removing accents is useful for: creating URL-friendly slugs, generating safe filenames, database compatibility, search optimization, email addresses, legacy system compatibility, ASCII-only requirements, and programming identifiers. Many systems work better with plain ASCII characters.

Does removing accents change the meaning of words?

In some languages, yes. For example, in Spanish, año (year) becomes ano (anus) without the tilde. However, for technical purposes like URLs, filenames, and database keys, removing accents is often necessary despite this limitation. Context usually makes the meaning clear.

What languages are supported?

This tool supports all languages that use Latin-based alphabets with diacritical marks, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Polish, Czech, Turkish, Vietnamese, and many others. It works with any Unicode text containing combining diacritical marks.

Is my data safe when using this tool?

Yes. All text processing happens on our server with secure connections. We do not store, log, or share your text. Once you close the page, your data is gone. For sensitive content, you can also use browser-based alternatives that work offline.

Can this tool handle large amounts of text?

Yes. Our tool can process text of any reasonable length, from a few words to entire documents. The processing is instant regardless of text length.

Will this work for non-Latin alphabets?

This tool is designed for Latin-based alphabets with diacritical marks. It won't convert Cyrillic (Russian), Greek, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, or other non-Latin writing systems.

Additional Resources

Learn more about Unicode, accents, and internationalization:

• Unicode Standard - Official Documentation
• Character Encodings - W3C Internationalization
• Diacritics - Wikipedia

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