Unidecode
ASCII transliterations of Unicode text
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, with license awareness. Unidecode is stable, dependency-free, and has no known vulnerabilities. Install it if you need lossy Unicode-to-ASCII conversion and can accept GPLv2+ copyleft terms. Do not use it for user-facing transliteration of non-Latin scripts where language-specific accuracy matters—the documentation explicitly recommends alternatives for those cases.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Python 3.7 or later.
- For correct handling of characters outside the Basic Multilingual Plane (e.g., mathematical notation variants), your Python build must support wide Unicode (UCS-4); check with `sys.maxunicode > 0xffff`.
- Low friction install with no runtime dependencies.
License · maintenance · safety
GPL (copyleft) — Licensed under GPLv2+, a copyleft license. Any application that distributes this package or derivative works must comply with GPL terms, including making source code available under the same license.
last release 2025-04-24 (477 days)
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 32,788,142 downloads/mo, #772 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install unidecode
from unidecode import unidecode
print(unidecode('kožušček')) # Output: 'kozuscek'
print(unidecode('北京')) # Output: 'Bei Jing '- Whether the 477-day gap since last release indicates active maintenance or stable-but-dormant status.
- Whether transliteration quality for non-Latin scripts meets specific use-case requirements (documentation notes it degrades for scripts far from Latin).
- Current download volume and adoption trends to confirm ongoing relevance.
What it is and what it does
Unidecode is a Python library that converts Unicode text into ASCII-safe representations by mapping non-ASCII characters to their closest ASCII equivalents. It takes a middle ground between useless placeholder characters and language-specific transliteration: for Western-origin languages, results are typically good to perfect, but for scripts like Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, quality degrades because the library does not attempt language-specific or context-aware mapping—it performs only character-by-character substitution.
The library is useful when you need to represent Unicode strings in ASCII for legacy system integration, URL slug generation, or keyboard-friendly identifiers. It provides a `unidecode()` function with configurable error handling (ignore, strict, replace, or preserve non-ASCII characters) and a command-line utility for batch transliteration. The package has no runtime dependencies and supports Python 3.7 and later on both CPython and PyPy.
Use it for
- Generate URL-safe slugs from Unicode article titles or product names.
- Convert non-ASCII user input to ASCII identifiers for systems that don't support Unicode.
- Transliterate names and addresses for legacy database systems or EDI integrations.
- Create human-readable ASCII approximations of Unicode text for display or logging.
- Batch-process text files via the command-line utility to remove or replace non-ASCII characters.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, with license awareness.
Unidecode is stable, dependency-free, and has no known vulnerabilities. Install it if you need lossy Unicode-to-ASCII conversion and can accept GPLv2+ copyleft terms. Do not use it for user-facing transliteration of non-Latin scripts where language-specific accuracy matters—the documentation explicitly recommends alternatives for those cases.
Install
unidecode on PyPI
Before you install
Low friction install with no runtime dependencies. Maintenance status is aging—last release was 477 days ago—but the package is stable and widely used, suggesting it is mature rather than abandoned.
Requires Python 3.7 or later. For correct handling of characters outside the Basic Multilingual Plane (e.g., mathematical notation variants), your Python build must support wide Unicode (UCS-4); check with `sys.maxunicode > 0xffff`.
License in practice
Licensed under GPLv2+, a copyleft license. Any application that distributes this package or derivative works must comply with GPL terms, including making source code available under the same license.
Quickstart
pip install unidecode
from unidecode import unidecode
print(unidecode('kožušček')) # Output: 'kozuscek'
print(unidecode('北京')) # Output: 'Bei Jing 'Verify before relying
- Whether the 477-day gap since last release indicates active maintenance or stable-but-dormant status.
- Whether transliteration quality for non-Latin scripts meets specific use-case requirements (documentation notes it degrades for scripts far from Latin).
- Current download volume and adoption trends to confirm ongoing relevance.
Package facts
| License | GPL copyleft |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.7 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | None |
| Maintenance | Aging 477 days since the last release |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 32,788,142 / month, #772 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | License :: OSI Approved :: GNU General Public License v2 or later (GPLv2+)Programming Language :: PythonProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.7Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9Programming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: CPythonProgramming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: PyPyTopic :: Text ProcessingTopic :: Text Processing :: Filters |
Evidence: Unidecode-1.4.0-py3-none-any.whl
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