Find and Replace Text Online Free
Find and Replace is a free online find and replace tool that swaps words, phrases, or regex patterns in any block of text you paste. There is no sign-up, no upload, and no watermark — every replacement happens in your browser, so your text never leaves your device. It works offline once loaded and can be installed to your home screen like an app.
Need to swap a word or pattern across a whole document? Paste your text and see it replaced instantly.
Use the free Find and Replace →How to Find and Replace Text Online
To find and replace text online free, paste your text into the source box, type the word or phrase you want to change into the Find field, and type its replacement into the Replace with field. The Result preview updates live with every match swapped, and a counter shows how many replacements were made — so there is nothing to submit and no page to reload. Tap Copy result to put the finished text on your clipboard.
Because it is a browser-based search and replace text online tool, it works the same on a phone, tablet, or desktop and keeps working with no connection once it has loaded. Most online editors send your text to a server to process it; this one does not, so you can clean up a draft, rename a variable across a code snippet, or fix a repeated typo without your text ever being uploaded — a quick find and replace for text editing wherever you are. It handles large input — up to five million characters — so you can paste a whole find and replace in text file online job at once.
Plain Text vs Regex Mode
By default the tool runs in plain text mode: whatever you type in Find is matched literally, so
special characters like . or $ mean exactly those characters. The
search ignores letter case unless you turn on Match case. This is the mode you
want for everyday edits — fixing a misspelled name or changing every "color" to "colour".
Turn on the Regex toggle to make it a regex find and replace
online tool: the Find field is then read as a regular expression. Patterns like
\d+ (any run of digits), \s+ (runs of whitespace), or
\b\w+\b (whole words) let you match by shape rather than exact text. It doubles as a
lightweight find and replace online text editor for cleaning up messy data — and
if your pattern is invalid, the tool flags it and leaves your text untouched instead of crashing.
Using Backreferences in Replacements
In regex mode the replacement field supports backreferences. Wrap part of your
Find pattern in parentheses to create a capture group, then reuse it in the replacement as
$1 for the first group, $2 for the second, and so on. For example,
searching (\w+) (\w+) and replacing with $2 $1 swaps two words around —
a regex match and replace online trick that turns "John Smith" into "Smith John".
In plain text mode a dollar sign is treated literally, so replacing a price label with
$5 inserts exactly that. The two modes are the only behavioural difference to keep in
mind: $ is a literal character in plain mode and a backreference token in regex mode.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find and replace text online for free?
Paste your text into the source box, type the word or phrase you want to find, then type what it should become in the replace field. The result updates live with every match swapped and a count of how many were replaced. Tap Copy result to grab the output — there is no sign-up and no upload, and it all runs in your browser for free.
How do I use regex find and replace online?
Turn on the Regex toggle and the Find field is read as a regular expression instead of literal
text. For example, \d+ matches any run of digits and \s+ matches runs
of whitespace. The replacement supports backreferences, so a capture group like
(\w+) can be reused as $1 in the output. If the pattern is invalid,
the tool flags it and leaves your text unchanged rather than crashing.
What is the difference between find and replace and search and replace?
They are two names for the same thing: locating every occurrence of a string and substituting it with another. Some editors label the feature search and replace and others call it find and replace, but the behaviour is identical. This tool does a global replace, swapping every match in the text at once.
Can I do a case-sensitive find and replace online?
Yes. By default the search ignores case, so Cat, cat, and CAT all match cat. Turn on the Match case toggle to require an exact letter-case match, so only the precise capitalisation you typed is found and replaced. This works in both plain text and regex mode.
How do I use backreferences like $1 in a regex replacement?
In regex mode, wrap part of your Find pattern in parentheses to create a capture group, then
refer to it in the Replace field as $1 for the first group, $2 for
the second, and so on. For example, find (\w+) (\w+) and replace with
$2 $1 to swap two words. In plain text mode a dollar sign is treated literally, so
$5 stays $5.