Question 1

Is Textbench really free?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Every one of our free online text tools is free forever: no sign-up, no paywall, no watermarks on outputs, and no trial limits.

Question 2

Does Textbench upload my text to a server?

Accepted Answer

No. Textbench is a static website, so there is no backend that receives anything you paste or upload. Every tool runs entirely as JavaScript inside your browser tab. You can verify this by opening DevTools' Network tab, or by disconnecting from the internet after the page loads.

Question 3

Do I need to create an account to use these tools?

Accepted Answer

No account is required. Open any tool, paste your text or drop a file, and you'll see results immediately. Nothing about you is collected beyond standard anonymous Google Analytics pageviews.

Question 4

Can I use these text tools on my phone or tablet?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Every tool is responsive and works on mobile, tablet, and desktop browsers. No app install is required. Bookmark the page or add it to your home screen.

Question 5

Will Textbench work offline?

Accepted Answer

Once a tool page has loaded once, the actual processing runs in your browser, so most tools will keep working even if you go offline. Pages have to be reachable for the first load, but no further server contact is needed.

Question 6

Which browsers are supported?

Accepted Answer

Any modern browser released in the last few years, including Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Brave, Opera, and their mobile equivalents. Some tools rely on the Web Crypto and Clipboard APIs which are standard in all of the above.

Question 7

Is it safe to paste sensitive text or passwords into Textbench?

Accepted Answer

The text never leaves your browser. That's the central design promise. See the privacy page for the full statement. That said, as a general rule, avoid pasting production secrets into any third-party tool you can't audit yourself.

Question 8

What data do you collect?

Accepted Answer

Standard anonymous Google Analytics pageview data: referrer, page path, country, device class. We never collect or transmit the contents of what you paste into a tool.

Question 9

Do you set cookies?

Accepted Answer

Google Analytics sets its own cookies. The site itself stores a few UI preferences in your browser's localStorage, such as your theme, per-tool options (like JSON indent width or the extractor's unique-only toggle), and your recently used tools for the search palette. None of that is transmitted off your device.

Question 10

How do I extract all URLs from a block of text?

Accepted Answer

Open the Pattern Extractor, paste your text, and select the "URLs" chip. Each chip shows a live count of matches in your text. The extractor finds http and https links. You can copy the list, export it as TXT, CSV, or JSON, or click "Open all" to open every URL in a new tab.

Question 11

How do I extract email addresses from a long document or log file?

Accepted Answer

Paste the text (or drop the .txt / .csv file) into the Pattern Extractor and tap the "Emails" pattern chip. The tool detects standard RFC-ish email syntax, and you can dedupe the results and download them as CSV for spreadsheet use.

Question 12

Can I open all extracted URLs in new tabs at once?

Accepted Answer

Yes. With the URLs pattern selected, the "Open all" button opens every extracted URL in a background tab. The first time, your browser may ask you to allow pop-ups for the site. Allow it and click again, and every link opens.

Question 13

What patterns can the extractor recognise?

Accepted Answer

Email addresses, URLs, phone numbers (incl. international), IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, UUIDs, MAC addresses, dates, hex colors, hashtags, Markdown links, and @mentions. Pick a pattern chip above the editor, where every chip shows a live count of matches in your text.

Question 14

Can I export the extracted matches?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Next to the match list you can download the results as plain text (one match per line), CSV, or JSON, or copy everything to the clipboard with one click.

Question 15

How do I remove duplicate lines from a list?

Accepted Answer

Paste your list into Deduplicate Lines. The first occurrence of each line is kept, the rest are dropped, and the original order is preserved. You can also ignore case, trim whitespace, and skip empty lines.

Question 16

How do I sort a list of lines alphabetically online?

Accepted Answer

Use the Sort Lines tool. It sorts case-insensitively by default and uses natural ordering, so "item2" appears before "item10" instead of after it. You can also sort numerically, by line length, shuffle into a random order, or simply reverse the list.

Question 17

Why does alphabetical sort put item10 before item2 in other tools?

Accepted Answer

That's called "lexicographic" sort, where digits are compared as characters, so '1' beats '2'. The Sort Lines tool uses natural ordering by default, which compares the embedded numbers numerically: item2 → item10 → item100.

Question 18

Can I do find-and-replace with regular expressions in the browser?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Find & Replace has a regex toggle, plus case-sensitivity and whole-word options. Capture groups in your regex are available as $1, $2, … in the replacement string.

Question 19

How do I compare two texts and see the differences?

Accepted Answer

Paste the original on the left and the changed version on the right in Text Diff. The tool highlights added lines in green and removed lines in red, with line numbers on each side and counts of how many lines were added, removed, and unchanged.

Question 20

Is the text diff line-by-line or character-by-character?

Accepted Answer

Both. Lines are compared first with a longest-common-subsequence algorithm (the same family Git uses), then changed line pairs get a second word-level pass that highlights exactly which words differ inside the line.

Question 21

How is the word count calculated?

Accepted Answer

In the Word & Character Counter, anything separated by whitespace counts as a word after leading and trailing punctuation is stripped. So "don't" is one word, but "hello," is also one word because the comma is trimmed.

Question 22

How is reading time estimated?

Accepted Answer

Reading time uses ~238 words per minute (the median for adult silent reading on screens) and speaking time uses ~140 WPM (typical conversational pace). Both numbers come from published studies on reading and speech rates.

Question 23

How do I convert text to camelCase, snake_case, or kebab-case?

Accepted Answer

The Case Converter handles all of those, plus PascalCase, CONSTANT_CASE, Title Case, Sentence case, and a case-invert mode. Programmer cases split your input on whitespace, punctuation, and case boundaries.

Question 24

What's the difference between Title Case and Sentence case?

Accepted Answer

Title Case capitalises the first letter of every word ("Textbench Is Fast"). Sentence case capitalises only the first letter of each sentence ("Textbench is fast."). The Case Converter supports both.

Question 25

How do I format or beautify JSON online?

Accepted Answer

Paste your JSON into the JSON Formatter. Pretty-print mode indents with 2 or 4 spaces; minify mode collapses to a single line. Invalid JSON shows the parser error inline so you can see exactly where the problem is.

Question 26

How do I encode text to Base64?

Accepted Answer

Use the Base64 Encode / Decode tool. Paste any text, including full UTF-8 (emoji, accented characters, etc.), and copy or download the encoded result. Toggle "URL-safe" to swap +/ for -_ and drop padding, the variant used in JWTs.

Question 27

Is Base64 the same as encryption?

Accepted Answer

No. Base64 is an encoding, not encryption. Anyone who can read the Base64 string can decode it back to the original. Use Base64 to safely transport binary in text contexts (JSON, HTTP headers, data URIs), not to hide secrets.

Question 28

When do I need to URL-encode a string?

Accepted Answer

Any time a value contains characters that would change a URL's meaning, such as spaces, &, =, ?, non-ASCII, or emoji. The URL Encode / Decode tool uses encodeURIComponent semantics by default and offers a form-encoding mode (spaces as +) for application/x-www-form-urlencoded bodies.

Question 29

What's the difference between MD5 and SHA-256?

Accepted Answer

MD5 produces a 128-bit hash, SHA-256 produces a 256-bit hash. Cryptographically, MD5 is broken (collisions can be constructed in seconds) and shouldn't be used for security; SHA-256 is the modern default for signing, integrity checks, and password hashing (with a slow KDF like Argon2 on top).

Question 30

Is MD5 still safe to use?

Accepted Answer

For non-security use cases like content fingerprinting, cache keys, and deduplication, MD5 is fine and fast. For anything where collisions matter (signatures, tamper detection, password storage), use SHA-256 or stronger. The Hash Generator computes both side by side.

Question 31

Can I decrypt or reverse an MD5 / SHA-256 hash?

Accepted Answer

No, because cryptographic hashes are one-way functions. The closest thing is a rainbow-table lookup, which can recover short, common inputs (single English words, short numbers) but fails on anything reasonably long or random. Our hash generator computes hashes, but no online tool can truly "decrypt" one.

Question 32

How do I create a QR code from a URL for free, with no watermark?

Accepted Answer

Open the QR Code Generator, paste your URL or text, pick a size, and download as PNG or SVG. There are no watermarks, no sign-up, and the codes generate entirely in your browser. You can also tune the error-correction level for printing at small sizes.

Question 33

What's the maximum amount of text a QR code can hold?

Accepted Answer

A QR code can technically encode up to ~4,296 alphanumeric characters or ~2,953 bytes, but anything beyond a few hundred characters becomes hard to scan. For URLs longer than ~100 characters, use a URL shortener and put the short URL in the QR code instead.

Question 34

What is Lorem Ipsum and why do designers use it?

Accepted Answer

Lorem Ipsum is scrambled Latin placeholder text dating to the 1500s. It mimics the rhythm and letter distribution of real prose without being legible, so reviewers focus on layout rather than the words.

Question 35

How many paragraphs or words of Lorem Ipsum can I generate?

Accepted Answer

Up to 500 of whichever unit you pick (paragraphs, sentences, or words) on the Lorem Ipsum Generator. You can toggle whether the first paragraph starts with the classic "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…" opening.

Question 36

How do I convert HEX to RGB or HSL?

Accepted Answer

Paste any colour value into the Color Converter: HEX (#RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA), rgb(…), or hsl(…). The other two formats update live in the other fields, and the preview shows transparency over a checkerboard.

Question 37

Why would I use HSL instead of RGB?

Accepted Answer

HSL (hue, saturation, lightness) is much friendlier for palette design. You can keep hue and saturation fixed and just nudge lightness to get a tonal range, or rotate hue for accent colours that still feel cohesive. RGB is great for picking exact colours but bad for shifting along these axes.

Frequently asked questions

General

Privacy

Pattern Extractor

Deduplicate, Sort & Find/Replace

Compare & Analyze

Transform & Encode

Hashing & QR codes

Generate & Convert