YAML Repair — Fix & Correct Invalid YAML
Paste broken YAML and get it fixed automatically — tab indentation, smart quotes, a byte-order mark and trailing whitespace are repaired, then the result is re-indented to clean, consistent YAML. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
What does a YAML repair tool fix?
YAML is whitespace-sensitive, so a single tab character in indentation breaks the whole file — it's the most common YAML error by far. A YAML repair (or YAML fixer) tool detects the common mistakes, rewrites your input into valid YAML, then re-indents it. This repairer fixes:
- Tab indentation — converts illegal tabs to spaces (YAML allows only spaces for indentation)
- Smart quotes — replaces “curly” quotes pasted from documents with straight quotes
- Byte-order mark (BOM) — strips a leading BOM that some editors add
- Trailing whitespace — removes stray spaces and tabs at line ends
- Inconsistent indentation — re-emits the parsed document with clean, uniform 2-space indentation
Once repaired, use the YAML Formatter to tidy it further, the YAML Validator to double-check it, or the YAML Converter to turn it into JSON, XML, or CSV. Errors that can't be resolved unambiguously — such as a malformed flow sequence or a duplicate key — are reported rather than guessed, so your data is never silently changed.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I fix the "tab characters must not be used in indentation" error?
Paste your YAML into the panel on the left — the repairer converts every tab used for indentation into spaces automatically, then re-indents the document. That single fix resolves the most common YAML parse error.
What's the difference between repair and validate?
The YAML Validator tells you where the error is. The repair tool goes further and fixes the common errors for you automatically, then re-indents the corrected YAML.
Is my data safe?
Yes. All repair runs entirely in your browser using js-yaml. Nothing is uploaded to any server.
Why can't some YAML be repaired automatically?
Some errors are ambiguous — a malformed flow collection, a duplicate mapping key, or a misaligned block can be fixed in more than one way. When that happens the tool repairs everything it safely can and shows the remaining parser error so you can finish it by hand.