Messy copied text? This tool tidies it up: extra spaces collapse, line ends are trimmed and blank lines disappear – then copy the clean version.
Prefer doing it in your editor? Our guide covers find-and-replace too: How to Remove Extra Spaces and Blank Lines
How to use the Remove Extra Spaces
- Paste the messy text into the top box.
- Look at the three tick boxes underneath. All three start ticked, so untick any job you do not want done.
- Press Clean Up.
- Read the tidied text in the bottom box, and check the character count line to see how much came out.
- Press Copy result to use the clean text, or Clear to start again.
What the results mean
Three separate jobs, each with its own tick box:
- Trim the start and end of each line takes away spaces sitting before the first word and after the last word of every line. Pasted text picks these up from indents, tables and copying out of other documents.
- Collapse multiple spaces into one turns runs of spaces, and tabs, inside a line into a single space: “Hello world” becomes “Hello world”. It never removes spaces altogether — the words stay separated and readable.
- Remove blank lines deletes empty lines completely, so paragraphs that had a gap line between them end up sitting one after the other. Untick this one if the gaps in your text are there on purpose.
The count line under the buttons shows the size before and after: “Characters: 34 → 26 (8 removed)”. If the number barely moves, your text was probably tidy to begin with.
Worked example
Paste this text into the top box, wide gaps and blank line included:
Hello world
This is messy.
Leave all three boxes ticked and press Clean Up. The cleaned text is:
Hello world
This is messy.
The count line reads: “Characters: 34 → 26 (8 removed).” Four spare spaces came out of the first line, three came out of the second, and one more went with the blank line. Eight characters gone, and not a single letter changed.
Common mistakes
- Expecting every space to disappear. The tool reduces runs of spaces down to one. Text with no spaces at all would be unreadable, and no tidy-up should do that to your writing.
- Removing blank lines out of habit. In a letter, an essay or a set of instructions, blank lines are how paragraphs breathe. Untick Remove blank lines when the spacing carries meaning.
- Cleaning text whose layout matters, like a poem or indented notes, with everything ticked. Trim and collapse together will flatten its shape. Untick trim for anything you want to keep indented.
- Pasting into the wrong box. The bottom box shows results and does not accept typing. Paste into the top box, every time.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Does the tool change any of my words or spelling?
No. It only touches spaces, tabs and blank lines. Letters, punctuation and the order of your lines come out exactly as they went in.
Q: Why did my character count hardly change?
Most likely because the text was already clean, or because the untidy parts were things this tool leaves alone, such as spelling. The count line shows exactly how many characters came out, so a small number is a useful answer, not a failure.
Q: What happens if I untick all three boxes?
Nothing changes. The text passes through exactly as you pasted it, and the count line shows the same number twice. The boxes are simply how you tell the tool which jobs to do.