Text to Slug Converter
Turn titles into clean URL slugs, one or many at once. Runs in your browser.
About this text to slug converter
This tool turns a title or any line of text into a clean URL slug: lowercase words joined by hyphens, with accents, symbols and punctuation removed. It's for bloggers, shop owners and developers who need a readable web address, a file name or an anchor ID.
Type "Crème Brûlée & Café au Lait: 12 Easy Recipes" and you get creme-brulee-and-cafe-au-lait-12-easy-recipes. Set a maximum length and whole words are dropped from the end, so you never get a slug that stops at "recip". Switch to bulk mode to convert a whole list of titles at once, one per line.
The conversion runs in your browser as you type. Nothing is uploaded.
Features
Accents done properly
é, ñ and ç become e, n and c using Unicode decomposition (NFKD). Letters that don't decompose get real mappings: ß to ss, æ to ae, ø to o, ł to l. An optional German mode writes ä, ö and ü as ae, oe and ue.
Cyrillic and Greek too
Как приготовить борщ becomes kak-prigotovit-borshch, and Ελληνικά becomes ellinika. Scripts without a Latin form, such as Bengali or Chinese, can be kept as a Unicode slug instead of vanishing.
Max length that respects words
Pick a limit and the slug is shortened word by word. It also won't end on a dangling "for" or "the". A badge tells you how many words were cut.
Small details handled
Apostrophes are joined, so "Don't" gives dont instead of don-t. & becomes "and". Repeated separators collapse into one, and none are left at either end.
Stop words and numbers
Optionally remove short filler words such as a, the, of and for, or drop numbers. If a title is made only of stop words, they are kept so the slug isn't empty.
Bulk mode with unique slugs
Paste many titles, one per line, and get one slug per line. Repeated titles get -2, -3 so every slug is unique. Download the list as .txt, or as a .csv of title and slug pairs.
How to use the text to slug converter
- 1Type a title, or switch to Bulk and paste one title per line.
- 2Pick a separator, a max length and options such as stop word removal.
- 3Copy the slug or the full URL, or download all slugs as .txt or .csv.
When to use it
Blog post permalinks
Write a shorter, cleaner slug than the one your CMS guessed from a long headline. Pair it with a good title and description from the meta tag generator.
Product URLs in bulk
Paste 200 product names from a spreadsheet, export the CSV and import it back. Duplicate names get unique slugs automatically.
File names and anchor IDs
Make safe names for images and downloads, or IDs for headings like #how-it-works. The underscore and dot separators suit file naming schemes.
Planning a site structure
Draft every page's slug in one list, check them for clashes, then build an XML sitemap from the final URLs.
What is a URL slug?
A slug is the readable part at the end of a web address that names one page. In example.com/blog/easy-sourdough-bread, the slug is easy-sourdough-bread. The name comes from newspapers, where a slug was the short working title given to a story.
A good slug tells people and search engines what the page is about before they click. It is also what people see when a link is pasted into a chat or an email, so a clear one gets more trust than /p?id=8812.
Should a slug use hyphens or underscores?
Use hyphens. Google's own URL structure guidelines recommend hyphens to separate words, because they read as spaces. Underscores are often treated as part of a word, so best_coffee_beans can be read as one long token.
Underscores and dots still have a place in file names, code identifiers and systems that already use them. If you need the same text in kebab-case or snake_case for code, the case converter does that too.
How long should a URL slug be?
There is no official limit for slugs. Google has not published one, and browsers handle URLs thousands of characters long. Shorter is still better for people: easier to read, to type and to share. Many editors aim for 3 to 5 meaningful words.
- Keep the main keyword. "easy-sourdough-bread" beats "the-easiest-sourdough-bread-you-will-ever-make".
- Don't change a published slug without a 301 redirect, or old links and rankings break.
- Stop word removal is a style choice. "how-to-tie-a-tie" reads better than "how-tie-tie", so check the result.
Which characters are safe in a URL?
RFC 3986, the standard for URLs, lists the unreserved characters that never need escaping: A to Z, a to z, 0 to 9, hyphen, dot, underscore and tilde. A slug made only of those works everywhere, which is what the "URL-safe ASCII" badge confirms.
Letters from other scripts are allowed in modern URLs, and browsers show them nicely in the address bar. Behind the scenes they are sent as percent-encoded bytes, so a 10-letter Bengali slug turns into more than 80 characters of %E0%A6 codes when copied. You can see the percent-encoded form before you decide.
Why use Mavros
| Mavros | Typical upload sites | |
|---|---|---|
| Max length | Drops whole words, never ends on "the" | Cuts in the middle of a word |
| ß, æ, ø, ł | ss, ae, o, l | Often deleted |
| Apostrophes | dont | don-t |
| Cyrillic and Greek | Transliterated | Often an empty slug |
| Bulk mode | Unique slugs, .txt and .csv export | One at a time, or no export |
| Where your text goes | Stays in your browser | Sometimes sent to a server |
Tips
- Keep "Write & as and" on for titles like Salt & Pepper; otherwise the & simply disappears.
- For German content, turn on the umlaut option so Köln becomes koeln, the spelling German readers expect.
- In bulk mode, clean the title list first. Removing duplicate titles beats ending up with -2 slugs.
- If a slug comes out empty, the title is probably in a script without a Latin form. Turn off "Convert to plain ASCII" to keep it.
Questions
How do I convert text to a slug?
Type or paste your title into the box. The slug appears below as you type: lowercase, hyphen-separated and free of accents and symbols. Copy it, or copy the full URL after adding your base address.
Should I use hyphens or underscores in a URL?
Hyphens. Google recommends them for separating words in URLs because they are read as spaces, while underscores can join words together. Use underscores only where a system or naming scheme requires them.
What happens to accented letters like é or ü?
They are converted to plain letters: é to e, ñ to n, ü to u. With the German option, ü becomes ue instead. Turn off "Convert to plain ASCII" if you want to keep the accents.
Should I remove stop words from slugs?
Sometimes. Removing a, the and of makes long slugs shorter, but it can change the meaning: "how-to-tie-a-tie" becomes "how-tie-tie". Try the option and keep whichever version still reads naturally.
Does the max length cut words in half?
No. Whole words are dropped from the end until the slug fits, and a trailing stop word such as "for" is dropped too. Only a single word longer than the whole limit is cut, and you get a note when that happens.
Can I make slugs from many titles at once?
Yes. Switch to Bulk and paste one title per line. You get one slug per line, repeated titles get -2 or -3 added, and you can download everything as a text file or a CSV.
Can a slug contain non-English characters?
Yes. Modern browsers and search engines handle Unicode URLs. Turn off "Convert to plain ASCII" to keep letters from any script. Just remember they are percent-encoded when copied, which makes shared links long.