To strike through text in markdown, wrap it in double tildes: ~~like this~~ renders as like this.
The meeting is on ~~Tuesday~~ Wednesday.
The meeting is on Tuesday Wednesday.
Is strikethrough part of standard markdown?
No — original markdown and the CommonMark spec have no strikethrough. The ~~tildes~~ form comes from GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) and is now supported almost everywhere developers write markdown: GitHub, GitLab, Discord, Reddit, Obsidian, Notion, Discourse, and this site.
If your renderer is strict CommonMark and tildes stay visible, fall back to HTML, which any markdown processor that allows inline HTML will render:
<del>deleted text</del> or <s>no longer accurate</s>
Use <del> for "this was removed/changed" (screen readers announce it as deleted) and <s> for "no longer accurate".
Does a single tilde work?
Sometimes — and that's the problem. GitHub renders single-tilde ~text~ as strikethrough too, but Discord, Obsidian and most other processors don't, and Pandoc uses single tildes for subscript. Always use double tildes; they work everywhere the feature exists.
How do you strikethrough in Slack?
Slack's message box isn't real markdown — it uses its own formatting where a single tilde does strikethrough: ~like this~. Double tildes in Slack render as literal characters. (Same trap in WhatsApp: single tilde.)
Which strikethrough syntax does each app use?
The ~~double tilde~~ form covers almost every markdown renderer; chat apps and a few work tools use their own markers:
| App | Strikethrough syntax | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket | ~~text~~ | GFM; GitHub also accepts ~text~ |
| Discord | ~~text~~ | Single tilde does nothing |
| Slack | ~text~ | Double tildes show literally |
~text~ | Same as Slack | |
~~text~~ | Both the markdown and fancy editors | |
| Trello | ~~text~~ | In card descriptions and comments |
| Obsidian, Notion, Typora, Bear | ~~text~~ | Notion also has ⌘/Ctrl+Shift+S |
| Jira, Confluence (wiki markup) | -text- | Not markdown; tildes stay literal |
| Google Docs, Word | no markdown | Use ⌘/Ctrl+Shift+X (Docs) or the toolbar |
How do you strikethrough in Trello?
Trello's card descriptions, checklists and comments accept markdown, so wrap the text in double tildes: ~~done~~. There is no toolbar button for it — type the tildes. Checklist items that you tick off are struck through automatically, so you rarely need it there.
Why isn't my strikethrough working?
Four causes account for nearly every case:
- A space inside the tildes —
~~ text ~~doesn't render. The tildes must touch the text:~~text~~. - Single tildes in an app that needs two (Discord, Obsidian), or double tildes in one that needs a single (Slack, WhatsApp).
- Strict CommonMark renderer (some static-site generators, Pandoc by default) — strikethrough is a GFM extension. Enable the extension or use
<del>text</del>. - Inside a code span or code block — markdown is never parsed there, so
`~~text~~`shows the tildes on purpose.
Does strikethrough work in tables, headings and links?
Yes — it's inline formatting, so it works anywhere inline text does: table cells (| ~~old price~~ $9 |), headings (## ~~Draft~~ Final), link text ([~~old page~~](/new)) and list items. It doesn't span across paragraphs; open and close the tildes inside each one.
Can you combine strikethrough with bold or italic?
Yes — nest the markers, keeping them symmetrical:
~~**bold and struck**~~ and ~~*italic and struck*~~
bold and struck and italic and struck
A common real-world pattern is striking through completed items in a task list: - [x] ~~Ship v1~~.