.env to JSON Converter (and JSON to .env)

A .env file and a JSON object hold the same thing — a set of key/value configuration pairs — but in two formats that different tools expect. .env files are the standard for local development and twelve-factor apps, read by dotenv and most frameworks, while JSON is what scripts, CI systems, secret managers, and serverless platforms usually want. Converting between them by hand is fiddly and easy to get subtly wrong, which is exactly where small details bite.

This converter handles those details in both directions. Going from .env to JSON, it skips blank lines and # comment lines, drops the optional "export " prefix, and respects quoting: double-quoted values are unescaped (so \n becomes a real newline and \" becomes a quote), single-quoted values are kept literal, and a # inside quotes is treated as part of the value rather than the start of a comment. Unquoted inline comments are stripped, and every value is emitted as a JSON string because that is what .env values always are.

Going from JSON to .env, each top-level key becomes a KEY=value line. Values that contain newlines, tabs, quotes, a #, or leading and trailing spaces are automatically wrapped in double quotes and escaped so they survive a round-trip; simple values are left bare for readability. Nested objects and arrays are serialized to compact JSON so nothing is silently lost.

Everything runs entirely in your browser — your environment variables, which often include secrets, API keys, and database URLs, never leave your device or touch a server. That makes this safe to use with real configuration, unlike tools that post your input somewhere to process it. Paste, convert, copy, done.