Whether you need to shrink your CSS files for faster page loads or un-minify a compressed stylesheet to make it readable, our tool has you covered. Our free CSS Minifier & Beautifier is a simple, one-click solution for formatting your CSS code for either performance or readability.

How to Use Our CSS Formatter

Transforming your CSS code is a quick, two-step process:

1. Paste your CSS code into the "Input CSS" box on the left.
2. Click either the "Minify CSS" or "Beautify CSS" button. The transformed code will appear in the "Output CSS" box on the right.
3. Use the "Copy Output" button to copy the result to your clipboard.

Example: Before and After

See how the tool can take a standard, readable piece of CSS and compress it for production, or take a messy one-liner and make it readable for debugging.

Beautified (Readable) CSS:

body {
  font-size: 16px;
  line-height: 1.5;
}
a {
  color: #007bff;
}

Minified (Compressed) CSS:

body{font-size:16px;line-height:1.5}a{color:#007bff}

CSS Minification vs. Beautification

While they are opposite processes, both minifying and beautifying CSS code are essential tasks for web developers, just used at different stages of a project.

What is CSS Minification?

Minification is the process of removing all unnecessary characters from source code without changing its functionality. This includes:

• Removing white space, indentation, and newlines.
• Removing code comments.
• Removing the last semicolon in a declaration block.

The goal is to make the file size as small as possible. A smaller CSS file means a faster download time for the user, which directly improves your website's loading speed and Core Web Vitals—a key factor for both user experience and SEO.

What is CSS Beautification?

Beautification (also known as "un-minifying" or "pretty-printing") is the process of adding back whitespace and indentation to make compressed code readable again. Developers often need to inspect a minified CSS file from a third-party library or a production website to debug an issue. A beautifier turns an unreadable one-liner back into a well-structured format that a human can easily understand.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1: Will minifying my CSS break my website?

No, as long as your original CSS is valid. Minification only removes characters that are unnecessary for the browser to interpret the code. It does not change the actual style rules. It's always a good practice to test your website after deploying minified files, but it is a very safe and standard optimization technique.

Q2: How much space can I save by minifying CSS?

The savings can be significant, especially on large stylesheets with many comments and a lot of whitespace. It's common to see file size reductions of 20% to 40% or more. While this might only be a few kilobytes, every KB matters for web performance, especially on mobile connections.

Q3: Is my code safe to paste into this tool?

Yes, absolutely. This tool is a client-side application, meaning all the minification and beautification logic runs directly in your web browser using JavaScript. Your CSS code is never sent to our servers, ensuring your data remains completely private.