List Item Replacer

Finds and replaces a substring within every item of a separator-delimited list, a per-item substring replace applied independently inside each item, not a whole-item replace. A free online tool from Staaarter, right in your browser.

Runs locallyUpdated 2026-07-27

Overview

Introduction

Bulk-editing a list often means fixing the same substring across every item at once, like updating a shared prefix, correcting a misspelling, or swapping a file extension.

List Item Replacer applies a find-and-replace pass to every item in your list in one step, without touching the parts of each item that don't match.

What Is List Item Replacer?

A per-item substring replacer: it walks every item in your list and swaps every occurrence of a search string for a replacement string, entirely within each item.

It never merges, deletes, or reorders items, only the matching text inside each one changes.

How List Item Replacer Works

The input is split into items using the selected separator, then each item's text is split on the search string and rejoined with the replacement in its place.

This literal split/join approach replaces every occurrence without needing to escape regex special characters.

When To Use List Item Replacer

Use it to bulk-correct a shared typo, prefix, or file extension across every entry in a pasted list.

It's useful after List Item Finder confirms which items contain the text you need to fix.

Features

Advantages

  • Literal substring matching means no regex escaping is needed for special characters like "." or "*".
  • Safe on no-match input, it simply returns the list unchanged rather than erroring.

Limitations

  • Only supports literal substring search and replace, not regex-based replacement; use List Filter with Regex mode plus manual editing for pattern-based needs.
  • Search text cannot be empty, since an empty search string has no well-defined literal replacement position.

Examples

Replacing a shared file extension

Input

foo.txt
bar.txt
baz.md

Output

foo.csv
bar.csv
baz.md

Every occurrence of ".txt" is replaced with ".csv"; "baz.md" is untouched since it doesn't contain the search text.

Multiple occurrences within one item

Input

aa-aa (search: "a", replace: "x")

Output

xx-xx

Every "a" within the single item is replaced, not just the first one.

Best Practices & Notes

Best Practices

  • Use List Item Finder with Contains mode first to preview exactly which items will be affected before replacing.
  • For pattern-based replacement (not literal substrings), combine List Filter's Regex mode to identify matches, then edit manually.

Developer Notes

Uses `item.split(search).join(replacement)` per item instead of `String.prototype.replaceAll()`, which achieves the identical literal (non-regex) replace-all behavior while sidestepping any need to escape regex metacharacters in the search string.

List Item Replacer Use Cases

  • Bulk-correcting a shared typo across every item in a pasted list
  • Swapping a file extension or prefix across a batch of filenames
  • Normalizing a recurring substring, like a domain name change, across a list of URLs

Common Mistakes

  • Expecting regex pattern support, like `\d+`; the search text is always treated as a literal string.
  • Trying to replace a whole item rather than a substring within it; this tool only ever edits inside each item.

Tips

  • If you need to replace an entire item's value rather than a substring inside it, use List Item Deleter followed by manually adding the new value.
  • Chain multiple List Item Replacer passes to make several unrelated substring fixes in sequence.

References

Frequently Asked Questions