Find & Replace

Find & Replace is a free, browser-based tool that searches a block of text for a word or phrase and swaps every match for something else. You paste your text, type what to find and what to replace it with, and get back a clean version with every occurrence updated at once - no scrolling, no manual editing.

It is the same operation you know from word processors and code editors, but stripped down and instant. You can rename a term across a whole document, fix a repeated typo, strip out unwanted characters by replacing them with nothing, or reformat a list. Options let you control exactly what counts as a match: whether case matters, whether you want to match only whole words, and - for power users - whether the Find field is a regular expression.

Everything runs on this page. Your text is processed in your browser and never sent to a server, so even confidential documents, logs, and code stay private.

Doing replacements by hand is slow and easy to get wrong - you inevitably miss a match or accidentally change one you meant to keep. Opening a full editor just to swap one word is overkill, and not every device has one handy. A dedicated online tool is the fastest path: paste in, replace, copy out.

The usual worry with web tools is privacy. Many sites send whatever you paste to a backend for processing, which is a real problem when the text is a contract, a customer export, or source code. Dev Nexus works differently. The find-and-replace runs entirely in your browser using plain JavaScript, so nothing is uploaded, logged, or stored. That makes it safe for sensitive text, and it keeps working even when you are offline.

It is also more flexible than a basic search box. Case-insensitive matching, whole-word boundaries, and full regular-expression support let you handle jobs that a plain "replace all" cannot - like matching patterns, capturing groups, or swapping several variants at once.

Start by pasting your text into the input box. In the Find field, type the word or phrase you want to locate; in the Replace field, type what it should become. As soon as both fields have content, the tool highlights and swaps every match, showing the result alongside your input.

The options decide what counts as a match. Case-sensitive matching treats Color and color as different, which you want when case is meaningful. Whole-word matching only replaces standalone words, so replacing cat won't touch category or scatter. Regex mode turns the Find field into a regular expression, letting you match patterns rather than fixed text - for example \s+ to collapse runs of whitespace or \d{4} to match any four-digit number.

To delete text rather than change it, put your term in Find and leave Replace empty - every match is removed. When the output looks right, copy it with one click and paste it wherever you need it.

Find and replace shows up in an enormous range of everyday tasks:

• Fixing repeated typos: correct a misspelled name or term everywhere it appears in one pass.
• Renaming and rebranding: swap an old product, company, or variable name for a new one across a whole document.
• Cleaning up data: strip unwanted characters, convert delimiters (commas to tabs), or normalise spacing before an import.
• Reformatting text: turn line breaks into commas, wrap terms in quotes, or add prefixes with a regex pattern.
• Editing code and config: rename keys, update URLs, or change a value that appears in many places at once.
• Redacting content: replace names, emails, or IDs with placeholders before sharing a document.

When you need to strip repeated lines rather than rewrite text, pair this with Remove Duplicates; to build and test the patterns for regex mode, use the Regex Tester.

A few habits make replacements cleaner and safer:

• Preview before you commit. The output updates live, so scan it before copying - especially with broad terms that might match more than you expect.
• Use whole-word matching for short words. Replacing a two- or three-letter word without a word boundary will hit fragments inside longer words. Turn on whole-word matching to avoid mangling category when you meant cat.
• Mind the case. Case-insensitive matching is convenient, but it can change capitalisation you wanted to keep. When case carries meaning - code, IDs, proper nouns - match case-sensitively.
• Escape special characters in regex. In regex mode, characters like ., *, (, and ? have special meaning. Escape them with a backslash (\.) when you want the literal character.
• Keep a copy of the original. Replacement is destructive by design, so save your source text before a large swap in case you need to undo it.
• Test regex on a sample first. Run a complex pattern against a few lines before applying it to the whole document to confirm it matches exactly what you intend.