What Is a .env File?

A .env (dotenv) file is a simple text file used to store environment variables for an application. Each line contains a key-value pair in the format KEY=value. These files are commonly used in Node.js, Python, Ruby, PHP, and other frameworks to manage configuration that varies between environments (development, staging, production) without hardcoding sensitive values in source code.

This tool parses .env file content and converts it to a structured JSON object. This is useful when you need to migrate configuration to a JSON-based system, validate your .env syntax, compare environment configurations, or generate config objects for deployment scripts.

How It Works

Paste your .env file content into the input area and click "Parse .env." The tool sends the content to the ToolPipe API endpoint POST /api/env/parse. The API handles comments (lines starting with #), quoted values (single and double quotes), empty lines, and inline comments. The result is a clean JSON object mapping each variable name to its value.

Supported .env Syntax

# Comments are ignored
KEY=value
QUOTED="value with spaces"
SINGLE_QUOTED='another value'
EMPTY_VALUE=
# Inline comments after values
PORT=3000 # server port

API Access

curl -X POST https://toolpipe.com/api/env/parse \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"env_text": "DB_HOST=localhost\nDB_PORT=5432"}'

Frequently Asked Questions

Are my environment variables stored or logged?

No. Your .env content is processed in real time and never stored on our servers. However, as a best practice, avoid pasting production secrets into any web tool. Use this for development configs, validation, and format conversion.

Does this handle multiline values?

The parser handles standard single-line key=value pairs. Multiline values (using quotes spanning multiple lines) depend on the API implementation. For most use cases, each variable should be on its own line.

What frameworks use .env files?

Nearly all modern frameworks support .env files: Node.js (dotenv), Python (python-dotenv), Ruby (dotenv gem), PHP (vlucas/phpdotenv), Go (godotenv), Rust (dotenv), and many more. Docker Compose also reads .env files for variable substitution.

Free .env File Parser