Summary — What Free HTML to Markdown Converter Does
What This Free Tool Is
Free HTML to Markdown Converter takes raw HTML — from a web page, a CMS export, an email template, a Google Docs paste, a Word document's web-export, anywhere — and turns it into clean, portable, git-friendly Markdown. It correctly handles every standard element: headings (H1–H6), paragraphs, lists (ordered and unordered, nested), links, images with alt text, inline code, fenced code blocks, blockquotes, tables, and horizontal rules. Scripts, inline styles, and layout-only divs are stripped so only meaningful structure survives. When you're ready to convert the Markdown back to HTML, the Free Markdown to HTML Converter is one click away — the ⇄ swap button at the top of the tool carries your current output across instantly.
Privacy: This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your text is never uploaded, logged, or cached. Close the tab and it's gone. Verify in DevTools → Network: zero requests fire.
Why It's Free (And How We Keep It Free)
This tool runs on Cloudflare's edge network and uses turndown — a proven, battle-tested open-source HTML-to-Markdown library. The JavaScript bundle is small, the hosting cost is tiny. No venture capital pressure, no dark patterns, no paywalls for 'advanced' features, no character limits. Our promise: the free experience today is the free experience forever.
Table of Use
At-a-Glance Reference
| Input | Output | Typical size | Speed | Login needed |
|---|
| HTML (.html, .htm, fragment) | Markdown (.md) | Up to 5 MB | < 100 ms | No |
HTML to Markdown Converter Features
Here's what this free tool does in detail — every feature is built to solve real problems, runs entirely in your browser, and is free forever.
GitHub-Flavored Markdown Tables
HTML tables convert to GitHub-Flavored Markdown (GFM) tables — with proper | header | header | rows, alignment markers, and pipe-escaped cell content. The tool reads <thead>, <tbody>, <th>, and <td> correctly, preserves the header row, and handles cells with inline HTML like links and emphasis. Works with Notion exports, Confluence exports, WordPress tables, and any hand-authored HTML.
If you need to build a fresh table from scratch instead, try the Free Markdown Table Generator — a visual grid editor that outputs clean GFM tables in one click.
Flexible Output Formatting
Choose your preferred bullet marker (-, *, or +), heading style (ATX # or Setext ===), emphasis delimiter (_italic_ or *italic*), strong delimiter (**bold** or __bold__), and code block style (fenced with ``` or indented with 4 spaces). Every option is visible in the options panel below the buttons — nothing is hidden behind a collapse.
For cleaning up messy Markdown afterwards, the Free Markdown Formatter normalizes whitespace, heading spacing, and bullet markers in a single pass.
Scripts, Styles, and Layout Divs Stripped
HTML in the wild is messy. Inline style attributes, <script> tags, layout-only <div> wrappers, tracking pixels, analytics snippets — this tool ignores all of them and keeps only the semantic structure. That's headings, paragraphs, lists, links, images, tables, code, blockquotes. What your reader sees as content is what ends up in your Markdown. What your browser ignores as layout or analytics is discarded.
For final cleanup and syntax verification, run the result through the Free Markdown Live Preview to double-check everything renders as expected.
Fenced or Indented Code Blocks
Pick the code block style that matches your target platform: fenced (triple-backtick ``` — GitHub's default, supported by every modern Markdown renderer) or indented (4-space indent — the original Markdown 1.0 style, still used by some older parsers). Most users want fenced; the indented option exists for legacy compatibility.
Need to count words, lines, or reading time in the resulting Markdown? The Free Markdown Word Counter strips all syntax before counting, giving you accurate numbers that reflect what readers see.
Runs Entirely in Your Browser
100% client-side. The HTML you paste is parsed by JavaScript inside your browser tab (using the turndown open-source library under the hood), converted to Markdown locally, and never transmitted to any server. No logs, no database, no cache, no telemetry. You can verify this in DevTools: open the Network tab, paste HTML, click Convert — no requests fire with your content.
The same privacy guarantee extends across every tool on the site. Stripping formatting? Use Free Markdown to Plain Text. Parsing into an AST? Use Free Markdown to JSON. Every client-side tool behaves identically.
Copy and Download in One Click
The Copy Markdown button writes the converted output directly to your system clipboard. The Download .md button saves it as converted.md (renameable before save). Both work on mobile and desktop. For documents with many headings, generate a table of contents afterward using the Free Markdown TOC Generator — paste the Markdown, get a nested TOC with anchor links, and prepend it to your document.
Building a GitHub project README? The Free README Generator pairs perfectly with this tool: convert your legacy HTML docs, then use the generator's template to build the final README.
How To Use Free HTML to Markdown Converter
Step 1 — Paste Your HTML into the Input Area
Drop any HTML fragment or full document into the left textarea. Source can be a web page (right-click → View Source), a CMS export, an email template, an old blog post, a Google Docs web-export, a Notion page's HTML output, or anything else. The tool accepts up to 5 MB. Click Load example to see a representative sample conversion first.
Step 2 — Adjust Formatting Options (optional)
The options panel below the action buttons is visible by default — every option is there with no hidden toggles. Pick your preferred bullet marker, heading style, emphasis delimiter, strong delimiter, and code block style. Most projects work fine with defaults (dash bullets, ATX headings, fenced code), so you can usually skip this step entirely.
Step 3 — Copy or Download the Markdown
Click Copy Markdown to grab the result, or Download .md to save it as a file. Need to convert back to HTML? Click the ⇄ swap button at the top to jump to the Free Markdown to HTML Converter with your current output already pre-filled as the new input.
Who Can Use This Tool
Developers Migrating to a Static Site
Moving from WordPress, Medium, Ghost, or any CMS to a Markdown-based static site generator (Jekyll, Hugo, Astro, Next.js, SvelteKit, Eleventy). Export your legacy content as HTML, convert batch-by-batch with this tool, commit to git, deploy. Pair with the Free Markdown Formatter for consistent output across a large migration.
Technical Writers Converting Legacy Docs
Turning legacy HTML documentation — Confluence exports, old intranet docs, Mediawiki pages — into Markdown so it can live alongside code in a docs-as-code pipeline. Strip the layout noise, keep the content, review, commit.
Bloggers Changing Platforms
Moving from Medium to Ghost or Hashnode, from WordPress to Dev.to, from Substack to your own static site. Most platforms export HTML, most accept Markdown imports. This tool is the bridge. After conversion, run the output through the Free Markdown Live Preview to verify everything renders correctly before republishing.
Content Teams Modernizing Workflows
Importing HTML from email campaigns, legacy product pages, or old CMS exports into a modern Markdown-first workflow — Notion, Obsidian, Roam, Logseq, Zettlr. Markdown is portable; HTML is locked into whoever rendered it.
Students Copying Research into Notes
Reading research papers, encyclopedia pages, or reference docs in a browser and wanting clean Markdown notes in Obsidian or Notion. Copy the HTML, paste here, get clean Markdown with all the structure preserved. Track your note word counts with the Free Markdown Word Counter.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this free HTML to Markdown converter really free?
Yes. Every tool on freemarkdowntools.com is free forever. No watermarks, no character limits, no required signup, no upsells.
Do I need to sign up or create an account?
No. The tool works instantly. Registration is an optional upgrade that adds history, batch conversion, and larger file support — never a gate on the core utility.
Is my HTML uploaded, stored, or logged anywhere?
No. This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your HTML is never sent to our servers, never written to any database, never cached. You can verify this by opening DevTools → Network tab when you click Convert — no requests fire with your content.
What happens to inline styles, JavaScript, and layout divs?
They're stripped. Markdown has no concept of inline styles, scripts are security-dangerous and meaningless in Markdown, and layout-only divs aren't semantic content. The tool focuses on converting meaningful structure — headings, paragraphs, lists, links, images, tables, code, blockquotes — and discards the rest.
Does it correctly handle HTML tables with merged cells or alignment?
Tables convert to GitHub-Flavored Markdown (GFM) tables with proper header rows, cell content preserved, and pipe characters escaped. Merged cells (rowspan/colspan) flatten to standard cells — GFM doesn't support merges. Column alignment from inline styles is detected where possible. For building fresh tables, try the Free Markdown Table Generator.
Can I round-trip convert Markdown → HTML → Markdown?
Yes. Use the ⇄ swap button at the top of each tool to move between this tool and the Free Markdown to HTML Converter. The swap button carries your current output across to the reverse tool as the new input, so you can round-trip a document and compare the before/after.
Can I use the converted Markdown in commercial projects?
Yes. The output is yours — use it anywhere: commercial blogs, paid newsletters, published books, client work, company docs. No attribution required.
Related Free Markdown Tools