JSON Beautifier & Formatter
Paste minified or poorly formatted JSON, get clean indented output instantly — privately.
What it does
JSON is the lingua franca of modern APIs, but reading a minified payload — everything crammed onto a single line — is miserable. A beautifier adds indentation and line breaks so nested structures become visible at a glance.
convert2's JSON mode does this with one important difference from the older beautifier sites: the whole thing runs in your browser. No server round-trip, no upload, no cached copy on someone else's box. Safe for JWTs, API keys, production data.
How to use it
- Paste your JSON in the left pane, or press the SAMPLE button to load a realistic example first.
- The formatted version appears on the right instantly. Default indent is 2 spaces.
- Switch the indent between
2,4orTABfrom the top-right control. - If the JSON has a syntax error, the output pane shows the exact line and column where parsing failed — no guessing.
- Copy the output, download it as
.json, or click ↗ SHARE to generate a link that restores the same view for anyone.
Example
{"user":{"id":1,"name":"Ada","roles":["admin","dev"]},"settings":{"theme":"dark","notifications":true},"active":true,"lastLogin":"2026-04-20T10:30:00Z"}{
"user": {
"id": 1,
"name": "Ada",
"roles": ["admin", "dev"]
},
"settings": {
"theme": "dark",
"notifications": true
},
"active": true,
"lastLogin": "2026-04-20T10:30:00Z"
}Why convert2
- Local processing. Your JSON never reaches our server. Safe to paste production API responses, bearer tokens and customer records.
- Fast. A 10 MB file prettifies in well under a second — the parser is the browser's native
JSON.parse. - Precise errors. Syntax errors report line and column, so you land on the bad comma immediately.
- Minify too. Switch to JSON minify to strip whitespace for smaller API payloads.
- Diff built in. Paste two versions into the diff viewer to see exactly what changed between them.
- Share links. Great for bug reports — send a teammate a URL that restores the exact JSON you're looking at.
Common use cases
- Reading API responses copied from the DevTools Network tab.
- Normalizing JSON before committing it to Git (consistent indentation, no stray trailing whitespace).
- Debugging config files:
package.json,tsconfig.json,launch.json,manifest.json. - Converting single-line JSON log entries from ELK or CloudWatch into readable output.
- Preparing JSON examples for technical documentation or OpenAPI specs.
- Spot-checking mock data generated by libraries like Faker or Chance.
JSON specifics
- Parses strict JSON per RFC 8259. No trailing commas, no comments, no unquoted keys. If your file has comments, try the YAML mode (more forgiving).
- Key order is preserved — output reflects input order, not alphabetized.
- Numbers preserve precision. No silent int→float conversion.
- Unicode passes through unchanged. Nested structures up to several hundred levels deep.
- Empty arrays and objects render inline when they'd otherwise be alone on a line.
Frequently asked questions
How do I beautify JSON online?
Paste your JSON into the left pane. convert2 parses it and pretty-prints it with proper indentation in the right pane instantly — no server round-trip.
Is my JSON kept private?
Yes. All formatting runs inside your browser — no upload, no log, no cache on any server. You can confirm this in DevTools → Network.
Can I minify JSON too?
Yes — select "JSON minify" from the format pills to strip all whitespace and produce the smallest valid representation.
What if my JSON has syntax errors?
The output pane shows the parser's error with the exact line and column, so you can locate and fix the problem quickly.
Does it handle large files?
Yes. Tested smoothly up to 10 MB. The browser is the only limit.
Can I sort keys alphabetically?
Not in the UI yet. Keys are preserved in their input order.