Strikethrough Text Generator

Crossed-out text for WhatsApp, without the guesswork

A strikethrough is that thin line drawn horizontally through a word, the visual way of saying “this used to be true, but not anymore”. On WhatsApp it is genuinely useful: you can cross out an old price in a broadcast, mark a task as done in a family group, or add a bit of dry humor to your status. This tool takes whatever you type and returns strikethrough text you can copy and paste into a WhatsApp chat, your status, your About line, or a group description. Everything happens in your browser, so nothing you type is sent anywhere.

The tool is built for anyone who lives inside WhatsApp: small sellers editing a price list, admins keeping a group tidy, and regular users who just want their messages to look a little more deliberate. You do not need to remember any formatting syntax, and you do not need to install a keyboard or an app.

How the strikethrough generator actually works

There are two very different ways to get a line through your words on WhatsApp, and it helps to understand both because they behave differently.

WhatsApp’s own strikethrough (the tilde method)

WhatsApp has a native formatting feature. If you wrap a word or phrase in tildes, like ~this~, the app renders it with a strike line when you send the message. This is the cleanest option for normal chats and group messages because it uses WhatsApp’s built-in styling. The catch is that the tildes only take effect inside a real WhatsApp message field. They do not reliably style your status text, and they do nothing for your About section, where formatting characters are shown literally.

Unicode combining strikethrough (what this tool produces)

This generator uses a different technique based on Unicode. Instead of relying on WhatsApp to draw the line, it inserts an invisible “combining long stroke overlay” character (Unicode U+0336) after every visible character in your text. Your device then renders each letter with a stroke already drawn through it. Because the strike is baked into the characters themselves, the result is plain text that carries its own styling. You can paste it anywhere WhatsApp accepts text, including your About, your status, group names, and message drafts, and the line comes along for the ride.

Concretely, the word “sold” becomes a sequence where each letter is immediately followed by that combining stroke. To your eyes it reads as a single crossed-out word. Under the hood it is ordinary Unicode, which is why it survives copy and paste across iPhone, Android, and WhatsApp Web. When you type in the box on this page, the conversion happens instantly and locally, then you tap copy and paste into WhatsApp.

Real ways people use strikethrough on WhatsApp

The feature earns its keep in a handful of very specific situations.

Price changes for sellers. If you run a small shop through WhatsApp, showing the old price crossed out next to the new one is instantly readable. A line like “Was 40, now 30” lands harder when the 40 is visibly struck through. Because the About field and status both display Unicode strikethrough, you can keep a running offer in your profile without WhatsApp stripping the styling.

To-do and checklist groups. Families and roommates often keep a shared list in a group. Crossing out “buy milk” once it is done keeps the list intact while signalling progress, which is friendlier than deleting the line and losing the record.

Corrections and edits. When you want to correct yourself without pretending the first version never happened, striking through the original word and following it with the fix is honest and clear. It reads as “I changed my mind” rather than a silent edit.

Tone and humor in status. A status that says something crossed out followed by the real thought is a small, well-understood joke format. Since a status is visible to your contacts for 24 hours, the Unicode version keeps the strike intact for everyone who views it.

Group descriptions and names. Admins sometimes cross out an old meeting date or an outdated rule in the group description so members can see what changed at a glance.

Best practices and tips

Use strikethrough sparingly. One or two crossed-out phrases in a message draw the eye. A whole paragraph of it becomes hard to read, especially on smaller phone screens where the stroke can crowd the letters. Reserve it for the single idea you want to mark as outdated or corrected.

For ordinary chats and groups where you are simply sending a message, prefer WhatsApp’s native tilde method (~text~). It is lighter, it plays nicely with WhatsApp search, and screen readers handle it better. Reach for the Unicode version from this tool when you specifically need the strike to persist in a place that ignores tildes, namely your About, your status, or when you want to combine it with text you are pasting from elsewhere.

Preview before you post. Paste your result into a chat with yourself first (the “message yourself” feature, or a note-to-self chat) so you can confirm it renders correctly on your own device before it goes to a group or your public status.

Keep numbers readable. Strikethrough over digits like a price still works, but check that the stroke does not make a 3 look like an 8 at small sizes. If in doubt, keep the crossed-out number short.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

The most frequent mix-up is expecting the tilde method to work in the About section. It will not; WhatsApp only interprets ~ ~ inside sent messages, so in your profile you will just see literal tilde characters. That is exactly the gap this Unicode tool fills.

Another mistake is pasting strikethrough text into a field that has a strict character limit, such as your About (which is capped) or a group subject. Because each visible letter secretly carries an extra combining character, a crossed-out phrase uses roughly twice as many code points as it appears to. If WhatsApp rejects your text or truncates it oddly, shorten the phrase.

People also sometimes try to strike through emoji. The combining stroke is designed for letters and digits, and results over emoji are inconsistent across devices, so keep strikethrough to actual text.

Finally, do not rely on strikethrough to hide sensitive information. The underlying characters are still fully present and fully copyable, so a “crossed-out” phone number or password is still perfectly readable to anyone who selects the text.

Troubleshooting

The line does not show up after pasting. If the strike disappears, you are likely pasting into an app or field that normalizes text and drops combining marks. WhatsApp chats, status, and About generally keep it, but some third-party keyboards or clipboard managers strip it. Copy again directly from this page and paste straight into WhatsApp rather than through another app.

It looks fine on my phone but broken for the recipient. Rendering depends on the other person’s font and operating system. Most modern iPhone and Android builds display U+0336 correctly, but a very old device may show small boxes or gaps. There is no fix on your end beyond using shorter crossed-out phrases, which fail more gracefully.

My tildes are showing instead of a strike. That means you used WhatsApp’s native syntax somewhere it is not supported, or you left a stray space inside the tildes. Native strikethrough needs the tildes tight against the text (~like this~) and only works in a sent message. For status or About, use the Unicode output from this generator instead.

The copy button did nothing. On some browsers clipboard access needs a direct tap. Try selecting the output text manually and using your device’s copy option, then paste into WhatsApp as usual.

Why a browser tool beats extra apps

You could install a fancy-font keyboard, but that means granting a third-party app access to everything you type, which is a poor trade for an occasional crossed-out word. This generator asks for nothing. You open the page, type, copy, and paste into WhatsApp. The conversion is a few lines of text processing that run on your own device, which is faster and more private than any keyboard that phones home.