BYTETOOLS

Homoglyph Detector

Spot Cyrillic, Greek and other characters disguised as ASCII letters in domains, brand names and messages. Shows the position, script and code point of each one.

Scan result

Paste some text above. Every character that renders like an ASCII one but is a different code point will be listed with its position, script and Unicode value.

What is the Homoglyph Detector?

A homoglyph is a character that looks like an ordinary letter but is a completely different code point — the Cyrillic “а” (U+0430) renders identically to the Latin “a” (U+0061).

  • Built-in table of 149 Cyrillic, Greek, Cherokee, Armenian and IPA confusables
  • NFKC folding also catches fullwidth, mathematical and circled lookalikes
  • Every finding shows index, code point, Unicode block and ASCII twin
  • One-click fold back to plain ASCII, with copy and replace
  • Tells you plainly when the text is clean rather than inventing findings
  • Counts positions by code point so emoji and accents do not shift the indexes

How to use the Homoglyph Detector

  1. 1

    Paste the domain, brand name, message or code you want to check into the text box.

  2. 2

    Leave “Also flag fullwidth, mathematical and other compatibility forms” ticked for the widest scan, or untick it to see only true script confusables.

  3. 3

    Read the findings table: each row gives the character, its position, its Unicode code point, its script and the ASCII letter it is imitating.

  4. 4

    Copy the folded ASCII version, or press “Replace input with the ASCII version” to clean the text in place.

About the Homoglyph Detector

A homoglyph is a character that looks like an ordinary letter but is a completely different code point — the Cyrillic “а” (U+0430) renders identically to the Latin “a” (U+0061). Attackers use them to register lookalike domains and to slip past filters, and they also creep into documents that were copied between languages.

This detector scans your text against a built-in table of 149 script confusables covering Cyrillic, Greek, Cherokee, Armenian and IPA letters, plus lookalike punctuation and dashes. It also catches compatibility forms — fullwidth Ａ, mathematical 𝐀, circled Ⓐ, the fi ligature — using Unicode NFKC folding, which covers thousands more code points than any hand-written list. Each finding shows its position, its Unicode block, its code point and the ASCII character it imitates.

The scan runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, so you can safely check internal domains, customer names or unreleased brand copy, and the tool keeps working with no network connection.

Frequently asked questions

What is a homoglyph attack?

It is when someone substitutes a lookalike character from another script to imitate a trusted name — registering a domain with a Cyrillic “а” so it renders exactly like the real one. Because the characters look identical, people click without noticing anything is wrong.

How can I tell if a domain name uses fake characters?

Paste it into this tool. Any character that renders like ASCII but is a different code point is listed with its exact position and script, so you can see at a glance whether a domain is genuine Latin text or a mix of scripts.

What is the difference between a confusable and a compatibility character?

A confusable is a separate letter in a separate script, such as Greek “ο”, and Unicode normalisation will never merge it with Latin “o”. A compatibility character like fullwidth Ａ is a formatting variant that NFKC normalisation folds back to plain A. This tool flags both, and tells you which mechanism caught each one.

Does folding to ASCII change the meaning of my text?

It can, so review the result before using it. Folding is meant for text that should have been ASCII in the first place — if your text is genuinely Greek or Cyrillic, folding it would destroy it rather than fix it.

Is my text uploaded when I run a scan?

No. All detection happens locally in your browser with JavaScript, so nothing is sent to a server. You can check confidential names and internal domains without them leaving your device.

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