CLAUDE WATERMARK REMOVER.
A reference for the invisible Unicode characters the Claude watermark remover detects and removes in Careful and Thorough modes—with notes on emoji-safe handling.
01 / Ledger
| Code point | Character | Careful | Thorough |
|---|---|---|---|
U+00AD | Soft hyphen | Removed | Removed |
U+200B | Zero-width space | Removed | Removed |
U+2060 | Word joiner | Removed | Removed |
U+FEFF | Byte order mark | Removed | Removed |
U+200C | Zero-width non-joiner | Removed | Removed |
U+200D | Zero-width joiner | Removed | Removed |
U+FE00–FE0FU+E0100–E01EF | Unicode variation selectors | Removed | Removed |
Also applied: Unicode NFC normalization standardizes canonically equivalent sequences. The report lists that separately; it is not counted as a removed hidden character.
02 / Origins
Copy-and-paste pipelines move more than visible letters. Editors insert soft hyphens for wrapping, BOMs for encoding, and joiners for emoji or languages that need them. Web pages and PDFs can contribute the same marks.
Finding a zero-width space does not by itself prove a Claude watermark. It does prove the character was in the string you pasted.
03 / Caution
Zero-width joiners, non-joiners and variation selectors are labeled carefully in the report because they can affect emoji presentation and joined scripts such as Persian or Arabic.
Both modes still remove them outside preserved emoji sequences. Always skim the finding list when your text includes emoji or complex scripts.
04 / Notes
Shown as U+…. That is the stable identity of the character across fonts and editors.
The ledger lists how many times each mark appeared and where, so you can correlate with the marked preview.
Separate from removal counts. Equivalent Unicode sequences may be standardized; the UI calls that out when it happens.
Joiners and presentation selectors that belong to emoji sequences are kept so multi-codepoint emoji do not break.
The Unicode pass is shared. Thorough only adds an AI wording rewrite first—see how to remove.
Use the detector workflow if you want to inspect marks before deciding on Thorough.