HTML Minifier

0.1.12 · maintenance · verified Sat Apr 11

Htmlmin is a configurable Python library designed for minifying HTML, offering safety features and various options to control the minification process. It removes extra whitespace, comments, and other unneeded characters to reduce page size and improve load times. The current version is 0.1.12, released in December 2017. The original project appears to be in maintenance mode or largely inactive, leading to the creation of several forks (e.g., `htmlmin2`, `htmlmin4`) to address compatibility with newer Python versions and continued development.

Warnings

breaking The `htmlmin` library implicitly relies on Python's built-in `cgi` module, which was deprecated in Python 3.11 and removed in Python 3.13. Attempting to use `htmlmin` on Python 3.13 or newer will result in a `ModuleNotFoundError`.
Fix: Consider using a maintained fork like `htmlmin2` or `htmlmin4` which address this compatibility issue, or port your code to use an alternative, actively maintained HTML minification library.
gotcha Using `remove_all_empty_space=True` can lead to unexpected visual or functional breakage, especially with inline HTML elements. This option removes all whitespace between tags, potentially collapsing space where it is semantically important (e.g., between `<i>X</i> <i>Y</i>` becoming `<i>X</i><i>Y</i>`).
Fix: Use `remove_empty_space=True` (which is safer as it primarily targets newlines) or carefully test with `remove_all_empty_space=True` and only use if you are confident in the result. Ensure essential spaces are preserved within content or explicitly protected.
gotcha The original `htmlmin` library has not seen updates since late 2017, indicating it is no longer actively maintained. This means it may not receive bug fixes, security patches, or compatibility updates for newer Python versions or HTML standards.
Fix: For new projects or if encountering issues with modern Python, evaluate actively maintained forks such as `htmlmin2` (latest 0.1.13, March 2023) or `htmlmin4` (latest 0.2.15, March 2025) or other HTML minification alternatives.
gotcha To prevent `htmlmin` from minifying specific blocks of HTML, you can add a `pre` attribute to the HTML tag wrapping the content. By default, `htmlmin` will remove this `pre` attribute from the output.
Fix: Wrap the content you wish to protect in an element with the `pre` attribute (e.g., `<div pre>...</div>`). If you need to keep the `pre` attribute in the output, use the `keep_pre=True` option in the `minify` function or `Minifier` class. You can also specify custom attributes via `pre_attr` and additional pre-defined tags via `pre_tags`.

Install

pip install htmlmin Install `htmlmin`

Imports

minify
```
import htmlmin
htmlmin.minify(html_string)
```
The `minify` function is a direct entry point for one-off minification.
Minifier
```
from htmlmin import Minifier
minifier = Minifier()
minified_html = minifier.minify(html_string)
```
Use the `Minifier` class for persistent options and more efficient repeated minification.

Quickstart

This example demonstrates how to use the `htmlmin.minify` function to minify a basic HTML string, removing comments and empty spaces. The `pre` tag content is preserved by default.

import htmlmin

input_html = '''
<html>
    <head>
        <title> My Page </title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <!-- This is a comment -->
        <h1> Welcome! </h1>
        <p> This is some      text. </p>
        <pre> Preformatted  text </pre>
    </body>
</html>
'''

minified_html = htmlmin.minify(
    input_html,
    remove_comments=True,
    remove_empty_space=True
)

print(minified_html)
# Expected output: <html><head><title>My Page</title></head><body><h1>Welcome!</h1><p>This is some text.</p><pre> Preformatted  text </pre></body></html>

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