Remove Parentheses and Brackets
Paste any text. The tool strips parentheses, square brackets, and curly braces. Toggle "Drop inner content" to remove the bracketed text along with the brackets, or leave it off to keep only the surrounding text without the brackets.
What the strip tool does
The tool removes parentheses (( )), square brackets ([ ]), and curly braces ({ }) from any text. Each bracket type can be toggled on or off independently. A fourth toggle decides whether to also drop the inner content.
With Drop inner content OFF (default): "The report (final version) was filed" becomes "The report final version was filed". Only the bracket characters are removed; the text inside stays.
With Drop inner content ON: "The report (final version) was filed" becomes "The report was filed". The bracket characters AND their inner text are removed.
After the strip, the tool collapses double spaces and removes the orphan space that gets left in front of trailing punctuation like commas and periods.
When you need each mode
Strip brackets but keep content (default mode). Useful when you have inline parenthetical annotations you want to flatten:
- "Smith (2019) argues..." → "Smith 2019 argues..."
- "The result was 42 [+/- 0.5]" → "The result was 42 +/- 0.5"
- Markdown footnote stripping where you want the footnote text inline.
Strip brackets AND content (drop-inner mode). Useful when the bracketed text is editorial scaffolding you want gone:
- "He said {laughs} that the deadline still stood" → "He said that the deadline still stood"
- "The patient's name [REDACTED] presented with..." → "The patient's name presented with..." (then re-redact the gap)
- "Lorem ipsum (dummy text) and more content" → "Lorem ipsum and more content"
- Stripping inline citations from academic text in drop-inner mode.
Edge cases the strip handles
The simple character-replacement strip handles flat brackets perfectly. The drop-inner mode uses a regex that handles flat brackets ((...)) but not nested brackets reliably:
- Flat brackets: "(hello) and (world)" → drop-inner strips each pair cleanly.
- Nested brackets: "((nested) inside)" - the drop-inner regex matches the inner
(nested)first, leaving( inside)behind. Run the strip twice to clear nested levels. - Unmatched brackets: The drop-inner regex requires balanced pairs. An unmatched
(with no closing partner passes through untouched.
For correct handling of arbitrarily-nested brackets, you'd need a recursive parser. The tool optimizes for the 95% case (flat, balanced brackets) and gives a "run again to clear nested" path for the edge case.
Related tools
Frequently asked questions
What gets removed?
Parentheses (), square brackets [], and curly braces {}. Each type can be toggled independently. The fourth toggle decides whether to also drop the inner content or just the bracket characters.
What's the difference between strip-only and drop-inner modes?
Strip-only removes just the bracket characters, keeping the text inside: "The report (final version) was filed" becomes "The report final version was filed". Drop-inner removes brackets AND their inner text: same input becomes "The report was filed".
Does the tool handle nested brackets?
For flat brackets, yes. For nested brackets in drop-inner mode, the regex matches the innermost pair first, leaving outer levels behind. Run the strip twice to clear nested levels.
What about unmatched brackets?
In strip-only mode, unmatched brackets are removed just like matched ones. In drop-inner mode, the regex requires balanced pairs, so an unmatched ( with no closing partner passes through untouched.
Does the tool collapse double spaces after removal?
Yes. After bracket removal, double spaces collapse to single spaces, and orphan spaces before commas/periods get trimmed.
Can I remove other characters at the same time?
No, this tool focuses on bracket characters. For other character classes, use remove punctuation, remove numbers from text, or the text cleaner bundle.
What's a use case?
Stripping inline citations from academic text in drop-inner mode: "(Smith, 2019)" disappears entirely. Or stripping markdown footnote markers from prose. Or removing stage directions {laughs} from a transcript.
Does it work on Unicode brackets?
No. The tool handles only ASCII brackets: ( ) [ ] { }. For Unicode brackets (e.g., 〈〉, 「」, 《》), use the word replacer with regex mode.
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