Subtitle Tag Stripper

How it works

1. Paste your SRT or VTT subtitle file into the input area, or drop a file directly onto it.
2. Choose what you want stripped — HTML tags, color codes, position tags, hearing-impaired annotations, or speaker labels.
3. The cleaned output appears instantly in the right panel as you toggle options on and off.
4. Review the changes — the tool reports how many tags it stripped and whether any cues were emptied.
5. Copy the result to your clipboard or download it as a fresh SRT or VTT file.

What each option strips

HTML tags

Standard inline formatting tags: <i>, <b>, <u>, and their closing counterparts. These are commonly added by video players or subtitle editors to render italics or bold, but many video editors and platforms reject them or render them as literal text.

Color and styling tags

Strips <font> tags (including color and face attributes), VTT class cues like <c.yellow> or <c.speaker-1>, and inline VTT timestamp tags like <00:00:01.500> that are used for karaoke-style highlighting. These are the most common cause of "garbled-looking" subtitle files.

Position and alignment tags

Removes SubStation Alpha-style override codes wrapped in curly braces, such as {\an8} for top-of-screen positioning. These tags survive when subtitles are converted from .ass or .ssa files and often confuse simpler video players.

Hearing-impaired annotations

Strips bracketed descriptions like [MUSIC PLAYING], [DOOR SLAMS], or [LAUGHTER], and removes standalone parenthetical lines. This is the fastest way to convert SDH subtitles (Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) into standard dialogue-only subtitles.

Speaker labels

Removes all-caps speaker prefixes at the start of cues, like JOHN:, MARY:, or DR. SMITH:. The tool uses a conservative pattern to avoid stripping mixed-case names that might appear inside dialogue.

Common use cases

Cleaning subtitles downloaded from OpenSubtitles or Subscene

Subtitle archives are full of files that include HTML formatting, position overrides from .ass conversions, and SDH annotations the user does not want. One pass through the tag stripper turns a messy download into a clean SRT ready to use in any player or video editor.

Preparing subtitles for video editing software

Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Final Cut handle subtitle imports inconsistently when tags are present — some render <i> as italics, some show it as literal text, some reject the file entirely. Stripping all formatting tags first gives you a clean baseline you can re-style inside your editor.

Converting SDH subtitles to standard subtitles

SDH tracks include audio descriptions and speaker IDs that are essential for accessibility but unnecessary for hearing viewers. Enable hearing-impaired annotations and speaker labels together to extract just the dialogue, then save the result as a parallel standard subtitle track.

Why use this tool

Deterministic stripping means the same file and the same checkboxes always produce the same cleaned output — no paraphrasing, no dropped dialogue, and none of the silent "helpful" rewrites you risk when you paste a full script into an AI chat. Privacy is absolute: parsing runs entirely in your browser, so nothing uploads, nothing is stored on a server, and you never need an account. That also sidesteps the token and context limits that make AI tools choke on long subtitle tracks past a few thousand cues; plain JavaScript regular expressions chew through a three-hour film in one pass on an ordinary laptop. Every toggle is live and reversible, so you can audition hearing-impaired text or speaker labels before you commit — nothing is final until you copy or save. It fits the rest of SubtitlesEdit naturally: clean the markup first, then time-shift the timeline, convert format for your NLE, or fix encoding when a download arrives garbled.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will this tool remove dialogue I want to keep?

By default, no. The smart defaults only strip HTML, color, and position tags — all of which are rendering instructions, not content. Hearing-impaired annotations and speaker labels are turned off by default because they are content you might want to keep. Only enable those toggles if you have reviewed your file and want them removed.

Why didn't it remove every speaker label in my file?

The speaker label option only catches all-caps names followed by a colon, like JOHN: or DR. SMITH:. This is intentional — mixed-case names like "Dr. Smith:" are too easily confused with regular sentences that happen to end in a colon, so the tool plays it safe. If your file uses mixed-case speaker labels, you can use the Subtitle Find & Replace tool for targeted removal.

Does this work with Advanced SubStation Alpha (.ass/.ssa) files?

Not directly — the tool reads SRT and VTT only. However, if you convert your .ass file to SRT first using a desktop tool like Subtitle Edit or Aegisub, the resulting SRT will often carry over position overrides like {\an8}. Running the converted file through this tool strips those overrides cleanly.

What happens to cues that become empty after stripping?

If a cue's text is entirely removed — for example, a cue that contained only [MUSIC PLAYING] when you strip hearing-impaired annotations — the entire cue is removed from the output, and the remaining cues are renumbered sequentially for SRT files. The status line reports how many empty cues were removed.

Will my italics stay if I want to keep them?

Yes — uncheck the "HTML tags" option and italics, bold, and underline tags will be preserved. You can mix and match toggles to keep some formatting and strip the rest. For example, keep italics on but still strip the heavy color and position tags.

Is anything uploaded to your server?

No. Everything happens inside your browser — your subtitle file never leaves your device. There is no upload, no account, and no tracking of file contents. You can verify this by disconnecting from the internet after loading the page; the tool will continue to work.