The short version
An XML to Markdown converter renders the element tree as an indented outline, with element names in bold, attributes noted inline, and text content shown beneath its element. It is a reading aid rather than a data transformation.
What this is for
Reading XML you did not write. That is genuinely the main use, and it is a real problem: XML is verbose enough that the structure is hard to see, especially without an editor that folds elements.
An outline makes the shape visible immediately. You can see how deep the nesting goes, which elements repeat, and where the actual content sits, in a way that scrolling through angle brackets does not give you.
Common cases are RSS and Atom feeds, sitemaps, build configuration, and API responses from older systems that never moved to JSON.
How elements, attributes and text are rendered
Three rules, applied consistently.
An element becomes a bullet with its name in bold, indented to its depth in the tree. Nesting in the XML becomes nesting in the list.
Attributes are shown in italics after the element name, as name=value pairs. This keeps them visible without giving them their own line, which would double the length of the output for no benefit.
Text content appears indented beneath its element, with whitespace collapsed. CDATA sections are unwrapped and treated as ordinary text, comments and processing instructions are dropped.
This is not a data conversion
Worth being explicit, because it is a reasonable thing to expect and it is not what this does.
The output is for humans to read. It is not machine-parseable, it is not reversible, and it does not preserve namespaces, entity definitions or document type declarations.
If you need XML converted to another data format, you want a proper transformation, XSLT or a parser in whatever language you are working in. If you need to read the thing and understand its shape, this is faster than either.
Reading a sitemap with it
One specific case where the outline is genuinely handy, since sitemaps are XML most people encounter without wanting to.
Pasting a sitemap shows immediately whether it is a urlset or a sitemapindex, because the root element is the first line of the outline. That distinction confuses a lot of people, and seeing it stated is faster than reading the raw file.
It also makes an obviously broken sitemap obvious. If the outline is one element with no children, or shows html at the root, you have found your problem. Our sitemap validator will explain it properly.
Questions about this tool
Does it preserve namespaces?+
Element names are shown as written, including any prefix, but namespace declarations are not resolved or preserved. This is a reading aid rather than a data transformation.
Can I convert the Markdown back to XML?+
No. The output is lossy by design and intended for reading. For a real transformation use XSLT or a parser in your language of choice.
What happens to CDATA and comments?+
CDATA sections are unwrapped and treated as ordinary text. Comments and processing instructions are dropped, since they carry no content for a reader.
Is my XML uploaded anywhere?+
No. Conversion runs in your browser and the content never leaves your machine.