# Non-Alphanumeric Cleaner

Remove all non-alphanumeric special characters from text with flexible preservation options

> Canonical page: https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/non-alphanumeric-cleaner

- **Category:** Text Processing

- **Keywords:** text, cleaner, alphanumeric, special characters, remove, sanitize, Non-Alphanumeric Cleaner

## Overview

The Non-Alphanumeric Cleaner is a text processing tool that removes all special characters, leaving only letters and numbers. It provides flexible options to preserve common punctuation, spaces, Chinese characters, or any custom characters you specify, making it ideal for sanitizing and preparing text.

## Inputs

- **Text Input** (textarea): Enter text to clean special characters from...
- **Preserve Common Punctuation** (checkbox): Keep .,!?;:()\[\]{}"'
- **Preserve Spaces and Newlines** (checkbox): Keep spaces, tabs, and line breaks
- **Preserve Chinese Characters** (checkbox): Keep CJK Unified Ideographs (U+4E00 to U+9FFF)
- **Custom Characters to Preserve** (text): Add any other characters you want to preserve

## When to use

- When sanitizing user input to remove unwanted special characters for data consistency or security.
- To prepare text for URLs, filenames, or systems that require alphanumeric-only content.
- When cleaning up text data for analysis or processing by stripping formatting symbols.

## How it works

- Enter or paste your text into the input field.
- Select preservation options: keep common punctuation, spaces, Chinese characters, or add custom characters.
- The tool processes the text and outputs a cleaned version with only the allowed characters.

## Use cases

- Cleaning user-submitted form data to prevent encoding issues or security risks.
- Generating clean slugs for web pages by removing special characters from titles.
- Preparing text for machine learning models that require alphanumeric input only.

## Frequently asked questions

### What characters are removed by default?

All non-alphanumeric characters are removed, including symbols like @, #, $, %, &, *, leaving only letters and numbers.

### Can I preserve specific punctuation marks?

Yes, enable 'Preserve Common Punctuation' to keep .,!?;:()[]{}"'.

### Does it support non-English characters?

Yes, you can preserve Chinese characters by enabling the 'Preserve Chinese Characters' option.

### How do I keep characters not listed in the options?

Use the 'Custom Characters to Preserve' field to add any additional characters you want to retain.

### Is the tool case-sensitive for letters?

No, it treats both uppercase and lowercase letters as alphanumeric and preserves them by default.

## Related tools

- [Empty Line Remover](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/empty-line-remover): Remove all empty lines from text (lines with no content)
- [Line Number Remover](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/line-number-remover): Remove line numbers from text or code with intelligent pattern recognition
- [Prefix Remover](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/prefix-remover): Remove common prefixes from each line with intelligent detection and customizable options
- [Suffix Remover](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/suffix-remover): Remove common suffixes from each line with intelligent detection and customizable options
- [Text Emoji Remover](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/text-emoji-remover): Remove emojis and special symbols from text content
- [Remove All Empty Lines](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/text-empty-lines-remover): Quickly delete all blank lines from text
- [Zero Width Character Remover](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/zero-width-remover): Remove zero-width and invisible characters from text
- [Chinese Character Extractor (汉字提取器)](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/chinese-character-extractor): Extract all Chinese characters from text, filtering out punctuation and English letters, numbers, and non-Chinese symbols

## Samples

- [Special Characters Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/text-special-characters-samples): Sample text files with various special characters, punctuation, and symbols for testing non-alphanumeric character removal
- [Duplicate Line Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/text-duplicate-line-samples): Sample files with various types of duplicate lines for testing duplicate removal tools
- [Android File Operations Java Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/android-file-operations-java): Android Java file operations examples including text file read/write, file copy/move, directory traversal, and file validation
- [Android File Operations Kotlin Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/android-file-operations-kotlin): Android Kotlin file operations examples including text file read/write, file copy/move, directory traversal, and file validation

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