Find & Replace: Bulk Text Search and Replace Online
Manual find-and-replace in a word processor handles simple cases. But when you need to clean up 500 rows of CSV data, normalize inconsistent formatting across a document, or make the same structural change to hundreds of lines at once, a text-based find and replace tool with regex support saves enormous time.
When to Use Find & Replace
Fix bulk typos
Replace all instances of 'recieve' with 'receive' across a document
Clean CSV data
Remove trailing spaces or fix inconsistent date formats in exported data
Change formatting
Convert all UPPERCASE words to Title Case, or all quotes to a consistent style
Rename variables
Change a function or variable name across a snippet of code
Normalize whitespace
Replace multiple spaces or tabs with a single space throughout a file
Strip unwanted chars
Remove all phone number dashes, brackets, and spaces to get digits only
Plain Text vs. Regex Mode
In plain text mode, the search term is treated literally โ every character matches itself. This is perfect for simple substitutions like renaming a word or phrase.
In regex mode, the search term is a regular expression pattern, giving you the power to match variable text, character classes, and repetitions. The replacement can use capture groups to reuse parts of the matched text.
Regex Patterns You'll Actually Use
\d+One or more digits
Match: 42, 2024, 99
\s+One or more whitespace characters
Match: spaces, tabs, newlines
\w+One or more word characters (letters, digits, underscore)
Match: hello, user_123
^Start of a line
^NOTE: matches lines starting with 'NOTE:'
$End of a line
,$ matches a trailing comma at line end
(\w+)A capture group โ the match can be reused in the replacement as $1
Wrap a word in brackets using $1 in replace
[A-Z]Any single uppercase letter
Match: A, B, Z
\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}ISO date format YYYY-MM-DD
Match: 2024-06-15
Case Sensitivity
Case-sensitive matching means Error and error are treated as different strings. Case-insensitive matching treats them as the same. In regex, the i flag enables case-insensitive matching. When cleaning up user-generated text or log files where capitalization is inconsistent, case-insensitive mode saves you from writing multiple patterns.
How to Use the Find & Replace Tool
Paste your text
Drop your content into the input area โ a CSV, a document, code, or any multi-line text.
Enter your search and replacement
Type what you want to find and what you want to replace it with. Toggle regex mode and case sensitivity as needed.
Preview and apply
See how many matches were found, then apply the replacement. Copy the result to your clipboard.
Find and replace text now
Plain text ยท Regex ยท Case-sensitive ยท Bulk replace ยท Free ยท No sign-up
Open Find & Replace โFrequently Asked Questions
What does find and replace do?
Find and replace searches a block of text for a specific word, phrase, or pattern, and replaces every occurrence with new text. It's one of the most powerful text editing operations โ you can fix 1000 occurrences of a typo in seconds.
How do I use regex in find and replace?
Enable the 'Use regex' option and enter a regular expression pattern in the Find field. For example, \d+ matches any number, \s+ matches whitespace, and [A-Z]+ matches uppercase letters. In the Replace field, use $1, $2 to reference captured groups.
Can I delete text using find and replace?
Yes. Leave the Replace field empty and click Replace All. Every match of your find pattern will be deleted from the text.
What is case-sensitive find and replace?
Case-sensitive matching treats uppercase and lowercase letters as different. With case sensitivity on, searching for 'Error' will not match 'error' or 'ERROR'. Turn it off to match all variations of the same word regardless of capitalization.