Beautify JSON Online — Free JSON Formatter & Pretty Printer

How to Beautify JSON

JSON beautification (also called pretty-printing) takes compact or minified JSON and reformats it with consistent indentation, line breaks, and spacing. This makes deeply nested objects and arrays readable at a glance — essential for debugging API responses, reviewing configuration files, and understanding data structures. The standard convention is 2 or 4 spaces of indentation per nesting level.

Paste your minified or messy JSON into the tool above. It will output a cleanly indented version that you can read, edit, and share with your team.

Before and After Beautification

// Before: single-line minified
{\"users\":[{\"id\":1,\"name\":\"Alice\",\"roles\":[\"admin\",\"editor\"]},{\"id\":2,\"name\":\"Bob\",\"roles\":[\"viewer\"]}],\"total\":2}

// After: beautified with 2-space indent
{
  \"users\": [
    {
      \"id\": 1,
      \"name\": \"Alice\",
      \"roles\": [
        \"admin\",
        \"editor\"
      ]
    },
    {
      \"id\": 2,
      \"name\": \"Bob\",
      \"roles\": [
        \"viewer\"
      ]
    }
  ],
  \"total\": 2
}

Format JSON in Code

// JavaScript — 2-space indent
const pretty = JSON.stringify(data, null, 2);

// JavaScript — 4-space indent
const pretty4 = JSON.stringify(data, null, 4);

// JavaScript — tab indent
const prettyTab = JSON.stringify(data, null, '	');

# Python — 2-space indent
import json
pretty = json.dumps(data, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False)

# Python — sorted keys
pretty = json.dumps(data, indent=2, sort_keys=True)

JSON Beautification Best Practices

• Use 2-space indent for JSON — it is the de facto standard in web development and keeps deeply nested structures readable without excessive horizontal scrolling.
• Sort keys alphabetically when comparing JSON documents or storing in version control. This makes diffs meaningful and consistent.
• Beautify for development, minify for production: Keep formatted JSON in source code and config files, but serve minified JSON in API responses.
• Syntax highlighting: Pair beautification with syntax highlighting in your editor or diff tool for maximum readability.