Object Replacement Character U+FFFC

The Object Replacement Character (U+FFFC) is the small empty box, , that turns up in pasted text. It almost always means an image or attachment used to be there.

Unicode reserves U+FFFC to mark where an inline image, sticker, equation, or attachment sat in rich text. When rich text becomes plain text, the object is dropped but the placeholder stays. Most fonts draw it as an empty rectangle or a blank gap.

Where the  Box Comes From

It appears when content moves from a rich editor into a plain-text field, then travels unnoticed into usernames, forms, and databases:

• iMessage and Apple Notes. A copied photo, sticker, or audio clip leaves a  where the attachment was.
• Google Docs and Microsoft Word. A paragraph with an inline image, pasted into a chat box, code editor, or form field.
• PDFs. Text extracted from a PDF with embedded figures or form fields.
• Email. Forwarded or quoted messages with inline images or logos.
• Web pages. Copied text with an emoji image, icon, or embedded widget inside.

How to Remove It

Paste your text into the remove box near the top of this page and click Remove & copy. It deletes every  in your browser and copies the clean text. To clear other hidden characters too, use the Invisible Character Viewer.

In code:

// JavaScript: detect and removetext.includes('')          // true if presenttext.replace(//g, '')      // remove all

# Pythontext = text.replace('', '')

Technical Details

U+FFFC is classified as Symbol, Other (So) and lives in the Specials block, next to the Replacement Character. It is a real character, not a rendering glitch, so it survives copy-paste and storage.

 vs �: Two Different "Mystery" Characters

Both look broken, but they mean opposite things:

A box is usually U+FFFC (a dropped image). A black diamond with a question mark (�) is usually U+FFFD (an encoding problem).

Why It Matters

• Form validation. A  in a name or email field can fail validation in confusing ways, or pass and corrupt your data.
• Search and matching. Stored text with U+FFFC won't match a clean search, so records seem to disappear.
• String length. It counts as a character, so length checks and truncation misbehave.
• Code and config. In a config file, script, or commit message, it can break parsing with no obvious cause.

Run the text through the viewer on the homepage to reveal and strip it.