Expand a minified stylesheet so you can read and edit the rules
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere. Updated on 25 Oct 2026.Minified CSS is a single line with no spaces, which is exactly what a browser wants and exactly what a person cannot read. Paste the file and it is expanded: one selector per line, one declaration per line, media queries indented inside their block.
Paste the minified one-line stylesheet into the CSS box; the page opens in Beautify mode.
Check the count of rules and declarations above the box to confirm the whole file was read.
Find the rule you need in the Beautified pane; names, values and order are untouched.
Press Download to save the expanded stylesheet, or Copy to take it to your editor.
Names, values and order are untouched, so you can find the rule you are chasing and copy it straight into your own stylesheet.
This CSS formatter has two modes. Beautify lays a stylesheet out with one declaration per line, even indentation and consistent spacing around colons and braces. Minify strips comments and whitespace, shortens colours and units, and can merge rules that share the same block, then shows the size before, the size after and the percentage saved.
People reach for it at both ends of a job. At the start, a stylesheet arrives minified from a CDN or a build output and you need to read the rule that is causing a layout problem. At the end, you have a hand-written file and want the smallest version to ship. Both are one paste and one click here.
Minifying uses csso. The restructure option is the aggressive part: it merges rules with identical blocks, removes declarations that a later rule overrides and reorders where that is safe. It usually saves a few more percent and the result is equivalent, but if you are auditing a diff or your CSS depends on source order in ways a tool cannot see, turn it off and only whitespace and comments go. Comments beginning with an exclamation mark, which is where licence headers live, can be kept.
The rest of the article, and all 6 questions about CSS Beautifier & Minifier, are on the CSS Beautifier & Minifier page.
No. Beautifying and minifying both run in your browser with JavaScript. A stylesheet from an unreleased design or an internal admin tool never leaves your device, and nothing is kept once you close the tab.
A hand-written stylesheet with comments and indentation usually drops 15 to 30 percent, and restructure adds a couple of points more on top by merging duplicate rules. The page shows the exact byte count before and after, so you never have to guess.
Yes. Choose Beautify and paste the minified file. It comes back with one selector per line, one declaration per line and media queries indented inside their block. Selector names, values and order stay exactly as they were.
Minifying should not break a valid stylesheet. csso parses the CSS properly rather than using text replacement, so strings, data URIs and custom properties survive. If the file cannot be parsed you get the line and column instead of a broken result, and nothing is copied.
Still stuck? Ask about CSS Beautifier & Minifier and anybody who knows can answer. No account needed.
Same job, other tools: Unminify HTML – Expand minified HTML back into markup you can read and edit · Unminify JavaScript – Expand minified JavaScript into something you can read.
On the related tools: GraphQL Validator – Check a GraphQL query or schema for errors, optionally against your own SDL.
In the collection Code Formatters and Minifiers.