Is the Smart Quotes Cleaner free?
Yes. It is free and runs entirely in your browser, with no account required.
Does it upload my text?
No. The cleanup happens locally in your browser, so your text never leaves your device.
Does it convert curly quotes to straight quotes?
Yes. Converting curly single and double quotes to straight ASCII quotes is the core behavior.
Does it also normalize dashes and ellipses?
Yes. En and em dashes become hyphens and the single ellipsis character becomes three dots.
When should I use this instead of Unicode Cleaner?
Use this for visible typographic punctuation; use Unicode Cleaner for invisible characters like zero-width spaces and normalization issues.
Exactly which characters change?
The left and right single quotes, the single low and reversed quotes, and the prime and reversed prime all become a straight apostrophe. The left and right double quotes, the double low and reversed quotes, and the double prime and reversed double prime all become a straight double quote. The en dash, em dash, horizontal bar and the Unicode minus sign all become a hyphen. The horizontal ellipsis becomes three full stops.
Why does my JSON or YAML break when it contains these characters?
Because a parser matches on the exact code point. U+201C is not U+0022, so a string opened with a curly quote is not a string at all as far as the parser is concerned. Word processors, chat apps and CMS editors substitute the curly forms automatically, which is why a snippet that worked in your editor fails after being pasted through a document.
Does it also fix the em dash?
Yes. The em dash, en dash, horizontal bar and Unicode minus sign are all mapped to a plain ASCII hyphen. That is a semantic downgrade, since a hyphen is not a dash, but it is the right output when the destination is a system that only accepts ASCII.
Can I convert plain quotes back into typographic quotes?
Not with this page. Going the other way requires deciding, for each straight quote, whether it opens, closes or is an apostrophe, which needs context rather than a lookup table. This tool only flattens in one direction.
What about the invisible characters that came with my paste?
They are left alone here. This page deals with visible punctuation, so a zero-width space or a non-breaking space passes straight through. Use the Unicode Cleaner for those, or the Clipboard Cleaner if you want both cleanups in one pass.
Does the text leave the browser?
No. The replacement is a character lookup done in the page, so the text stays in the tab and the conversion is instant.