Need to encode or decode URLs? Our free online URL encoder/decoder safely converts special characters into percent-encoded strings and back, ensuring your data is web-ready and readable by servers. Perfect for API testing, web development, and debugging query parameters.
Search for a command to run...
Paste your URL or text string into the input area.
Select the mode by choosing either the Encode or Decode tab.
View the result instantly in the output section below.
Copy the result to your clipboard for use in your project or browser.
Tip
When encoding query string values, use encodeURIComponent to ensure special characters like '&' are handled correctly.
Bidirectional Conversion: Seamlessly switch between encoding and decoding modes for full URL flexibility.
RFC 3986 Compliance: Follows standard percent-encoding rules to ensure compatibility with all modern web servers.
Real-time Processing: Results update instantly as you type or paste your data.
Client-Side Security: All processing happens in your browser, so your sensitive URL parameters are never sent to our server.
One-Click Copy: Quickly copy your encoded or decoded results to use in your code or browser address bar.
Did You Know?
URLs can only be sent over the Internet using the ASCII character-set; all other characters must be encoded.
Prevent Broken Links: Special characters like spaces or non-ASCII symbols can break URLs if not properly encoded.
API Development: Essential for formatting query parameters in RESTful API requests correctly.
Debugging: Easily decode complex, nested URLs to understand the data being passed between services.
Cross-Browser Consistency: Ensures your URLs work exactly the same way across all browsers and operating systems.
URL encoding, also known as percent-encoding, is a mechanism for encoding information in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). Characters that are not allowed in a URL—such as spaces, symbols like &, or non-Latin characters—are replaced with a % followed by their two-digit hexadecimal representation. This process ensures that the URL remains valid and functional when processed by web servers, even when containing complex data structures in the query string.
Best Practice
Never encode an entire URL if you intend to use it as a link; encode only the specific parameters that contain special characters.
Integrating URL encoding correctly is vital for modern web development. When building dynamic search features, use encoding to handle user input safely within query strings. In web scraping or data analysis, decoding captured URLs helps extract clean parameters and identifiers. Furthermore, always encode user-provided data before inserting it into a URL to prevent security vulnerabilities like parameter pollution.
Q: What is the difference between encodeURI and encodeURIComponent? A: encodeURI is intended for a full URL and keeps separators like / and ? intact, while encodeURIComponent encodes everything, making it safe for query parameters.
Q: Why does a space become %20? A: In the ASCII table, a space has a hexadecimal value of 20. The percent-encoding standard uses the % symbol followed by this hex value.
Q: Is URL encoding the same as Base64? A: No. URL encoding targets specific reserved characters for URI compatibility, while Base64 is used to represent binary data in a plain text format.
Q: Can I decode a URL that has been encoded multiple times? A: Yes, but you will need to run the decoding process once for every time it was originally encoded.
Tip
Modern browsers often decode URLs in the address bar for display, but the underlying request remains safely encoded.
MDN Web Docs - Percent Encoding - Detailed explanation of how URI encoding works.
RFC 3986 Standard - The official specification for Uniform Resource Identifiers.
W3Schools URL Encoding Reference - A handy reference table for common URL encoded characters.