Remove Dashes
Strip hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes from any text. Replace with spaces, keep dashes inside numbers and dates, or clean the AI-style em dashes that scream "ChatGPT wrote this." Runs in your browser.
How to remove dashes from text
1. Paste the text
Drop your text into the Input box. The tool handles every dash variant in one pass: the regular hyphen-minus (-), the en dash (–) used in number ranges, and the em dash ( - ) common in AI-generated copy. Other dash glyphs like the horizontal bar (―) and figure dash (‒) are caught by the same Remove all rule.
2. Pick the rule
Default removes every dash. Replace with space turns hyphenated compounds into separate words. Clean AI-style em dashes only strips em dashes specifically and replaces them with a comma or period, which is the fix for AI-generated copy that screams "ChatGPT wrote this." Preserve dashes inside numbers keeps phone numbers and dates intact. Preserve list markers keeps - at the start of a bullet line.
3. Clean and copy
Click Clean. The output appears on the right with a count of dashes removed. Use Copy or Download to save a .txt file.
When you need a dash remover
Dashes look like one character, but Unicode has at least five variants used in real-world text. Six common cases where this tool helps.
The dash family: hyphen vs en dash vs em dash
Three glyphs do three different jobs, but most fonts render them at similar widths and most keyboards make all three hard to type, so writers (and especially LLMs) use them inconsistently. The hyphen-minus (-) at U+002D is the keyboard-typeable one. It joins compound words (well-known, mother-in-law), separates ranges in casual writing (9-5pm), and hyphenates line-wrapped words in print. The en dash (–) at U+2013 is wider; style guides use it for ranges (pages 12–18), score lines (Lakers 110–104), and connecting equivalent terms (the New York–London flight). The em dash ( - ) at U+2014 is the widest; it sets off parenthetical asides (the plan - if you can call it that - was vague) and replaces colons or commas for emphasis.
LLM-generated copy disproportionately uses em dashes for parenthetical asides where a human writer would have reached for a comma or a pair of parentheses. The frequency is one of the more reliable signals of machine-generated text. The Clean AI-style em dashes only toggle exists for this case: it strips em dashes specifically while leaving regular hyphens and en dashes alone, replacing each em dash with a comma or period depending on whether the surrounding text is mid-sentence or sentence-ending.
Dash removal patterns
| Pattern | Input shape | Settings | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI-style em dash cleanup | The plan - bold but rushed - failed. | Clean AI-style em dashes only on | The plan, bold but rushed, failed. |
| Compound word normalisation | state-of-the-art | Replace with space on | state of the art |
| Phone number stripping | 555-867-5309 | Remove all on, Preserve numbers off | 5558675309 |
| Bullet list with hyphens inside items | - well-known item | Preserve list markers on, Remove all on | - wellknown item |
For other character-level stripping (commas, whitespace, line breaks, punctuation), browse all text removers.
Related tools
Frequently asked questions
How do I remove every dash from text?
Paste the text into the Input box on the left. Leave Remove all dashes on and click Clean. Every hyphen (-), en dash (–), and em dash ( - ) is removed and the rest of the text stays in place.
What kinds of dashes does this tool handle?
Three: the regular ASCII hyphen-minus (-) at U+002D, the en dash (–) at U+2013, and the em dash ( - ) at U+2014. The tool also handles less common variants like the horizontal bar (―) and the figure dash (‒). Each can be removed independently using the per-type toggles in the sidebar.
Will the tool remove dashes inside dates and phone numbers?
Only if you want it to. The Preserve dashes inside numbers toggle keeps any dash where both neighbours are digits. So 555-1212 stays as 555-1212 and 2026-05-27 stays as 2026-05-27, but father-in-law becomes fatherinlaw.
Why are em dashes a brand signal for AI-generated text?
Most human writers use commas, periods, or parentheses for parenthetical asides. ChatGPT, Claude, and other LLMs disproportionately reach for the em dash. The result is that em-dash-heavy prose reads as "AI-written" even when the content is fine. The Clean AI-style em dashes only toggle strips the em dashes specifically (U+2014) and replaces them with a comma or a period depending on context, leaving regular hyphens and en dashes intact.
What does Replace with space do?
Each dash becomes a single space instead of being deleted. Useful when you have hyphenated compound words and you want them to read as separate words: state-of-the-art becomes state of the art.
Will line-wrapping hyphenation get stripped?
Yes. Old-style line-wrapping hyphens (the kind you see in PDFs and books) at the end of a line are removed and the next line is joined to the previous one. The tool detects this by looking for a hyphen followed immediately by a line break, optionally followed by whitespace.
Does this affect bullet-point dashes at the start of a line?
Markdown and email-style bullets (- item, * item) are recognised as list markers and skipped by default. Turn off Preserve list markers if you want the tool to strip them too.
Is my pasted text uploaded anywhere?
No. The cleanup runs in client-side JavaScript. The text you paste and the cleaned output both stay in the browser tab. We have no upload endpoint and we do not log content.
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