Em Dash Remover — Strip Em Dashes From AI Text
The em dash is the single most recognisable tell of AI writing. This tool removes em dashes or swaps them for plain hyphens in one click — and fixes the spacing so words never collide when a dash is deleted.
Statistics appear here once you paste some text.
Why does AI use so many em dashes?
Language models are trained on edited, published prose — journalism, books, essays — where the em dash is a house-style favourite for parenthetical asides. The model reproduces that frequency, but it applies it to every register, so a casual Slack message ends up punctuated like a New Yorker column. Human writers reach for the em dash a few times per thousand words; a model will often use it several times per paragraph.
Remove or replace — which should you pick?
Replace converts — to a plain hyphen and keeps the sentence rhythm, which is the safe default for technical writing and code comments. Remove deletes the dash entirely and inserts a space so "budget—which" becomes "budget which"; that reads more naturally in conversational copy but you should reread the sentence afterwards, because a dash sometimes carries grammatical weight a space cannot.
Which dashes are handled
Em dash (—, U+2014), en dash (–, U+2013), horizontal bar (―, U+2015), two-em dash (⸺, U+2E3A) and three-em dash (⸻, U+2E3B). Runs of consecutive dashes collapse to a single separator rather than leaving a gap.
Frequently asked questions
+ − How do I remove em dashes from ChatGPT or Claude text?
Paste the text above with the dash option set to Remove. Every em dash, en dash and multi-em dash is stripped and spacing is repaired automatically, then click Copy. To stop them being generated at all, install the Claude Skill or custom instructions from the Stop AI Using Em Dashes page.
+ − Do em dashes prove text was written by AI?
No. Em dashes are ordinary English punctuation and plenty of human writers use them heavily. Frequency is the signal, not presence — several per paragraph is unusual for a human, and no detector treats a dash as proof on its own.
+ − Can I remove em dashes but keep en dashes?
This tool treats all dash variants together. If you need en dashes preserved for number ranges, use Replace instead of Remove — ranges like 10–20 stay readable as 10-20.
More free tools
Claude Text Watermark Remover
Claude's watermark lives in word choice, not hidden characters. Rewrite word choice to disrupt it. Free, runs in your browser.
ChatGPT Watermark Remover
Detect and strip invisible unicode, zero-width spaces and hidden markers from ChatGPT text. Free and entirely in your browser.
Invisible Character Detector
Reveal invisible unicode in any text. Lists every hidden code point with its name and count. Free and client-side.
Zero Width Space Remover
Remove zero width spaces, joiners, non-joiners and byte order marks from your text instantly. Free, runs in your browser.
AI Text Cleaner
Strip invisible unicode, em dashes, smart quotes and messy whitespace from AI output in one pass. Client-side, no upload.
Free Text-Cleaning MCP Server
A free hosted MCP server giving your agent text-cleaning tools. Install in Claude Code, Cursor or VS Code in one line.
Stop AI Using Em Dashes — Skills & Prompts
Install a Claude Skill or paste custom instructions to stop ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini using em dashes and AI filler.
C2PA Metadata Remover
Remove C2PA provenance metadata, EXIF and XMP from AI-generated images. Re-encodes in your browser; files never uploaded.
Related guides
Em Dash vs En Dash vs Hyphen
The difference between the em dash, en dash and hyphen, when to use each, and how to type them on Mac and Windows.
How to Type an Em Dash (—)
Every em dash shortcut: Mac (Option+Shift+-), Windows (Alt+0151), Word, Google Docs, iPhone, Linux and HTML.
Why Does AI Use So Many Em Dashes?
ChatGPT and Claude overuse the em dash badly. The real reason it happens, why it signals AI writing, and how to fix it.
Does ChatGPT Watermark Its Text?
OpenAI built a ChatGPT text watermark and never shipped it. What is confirmed, what is myth, and how to check your text.