URL Encoder / Decoder — Free Online Tool
URL Encoding Results
What is URL Encoder / Decoder?
The URL Encoder / Decoder (also known as Percent Encoding) is a crucial web development tool that translates unsafe special characters in your text so they can be securely transmitted over the internet as part of a web address. ) can break browser routing.
This tool safely replaces those unsafe characters with a '%' followed by their hexadecimal equivalent (encoding), and can instantly reverse the process to make messy URLs readable again (decoding).
When to use URL Encoder / Decoder?
Use this tool to construct or inspect complex web addresses and API requests. Digital marketers encode UTM tracking parameters to ensure spaces don't break their Google Analytics links. Developers encode user-submitted form data before sending it to the server.
Conversely, security professionals will paste an impossibly long, percent-filled URL into the decoder to strip away the gibberish and read the exact, plain-text command being executed. If you need to make an entire article title safe for a URL path, use the dedicated URL Slug Generator instead.
How to use this tool
- 1Paste your text or URL
- 2Choose 'Encode' or 'Decode'
- 3Copy the result for your URL or API call
This tool encodes all special characters to ensure safety. For example, a single space will be mathematically converted into '%20', and an ampersand will become '%26'.
Examples
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
| Hello World! | Hello%20World! |
| https://example.com/path?q=hello world&lang=en | https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fpath%3Fq%3Dhello%20world%26lang%3Den |
| Hello%20World%21 | Hello World! (decoded) |
| name=John Doe&age=30 | name%3DJohn%20Doe%26age%3D30 |
| https://site.com/search?q=case+converter | Decoded: case converter |
Rules & Behavior
- Encoding translates spaces, punctuation, symbols, and foreign letters into their percent-encoded hexadecimal format (e.g., a space becomes '%20').
- Alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) and a few unreserved symbols (-, _, ., ~) remain completely unchanged.
- Decoding scans the string for the percent symbol (%) followed by two hex digits, translating them back into their original Unicode characters.
Related Tools
Frequently Asked Questions
What is URL encoding?
URL encoding (or percent-encoding) is a mechanism that translates characters that are not allowed in a web address into a safe format. Because URLs cannot contain spaces or certain symbols without confusing the web server, these characters are replaced with a '%' and a hexadecimal number.
Why did my spaces turn into %20?
A space character is invalid in an HTTP web address. The ASCII/UTF-8 hexadecimal value for a space is 20. Therefore, the URL encoder replaces the physical space with '%20'. When the web server receives the URL, it reads the '%20' and translates it back into a space.
What happens to the '+' symbol?
In legacy systems (like old HTML forms), a space was often encoded as a '+' symbol. However, modern URL encoding standards (RFC 3986) require spaces to be '%20', and an actual literal plus sign to be safely encoded as '%2B'. The decoder handles both formats gracefully.
Should I encode the entire URL?
No, you should only encode the 'parameters' or the raw data payload at the end of the URL. If you encode an entire URL (http://www.google.com), the encoder will change the system characters like the colon and slashes (http%3A%2F%2F...), completely breaking the destination link.
Is URL encoding the same as Base64?
No. Base64 converts the entire body of text into a massive block of alphanumeric characters. URL encoding targets specific characters (like spaces and punctuation) within the text, leaving normal English letters perfectly intact.