URL Encoder & Decoder

How to Use the URL Encoder and Decoder

1. Choose your mode: Select encode to convert a URL or text component to a percent-encoded format, or decode to convert an encoded URL back to readable text.
2. Select the encoding type: Choose encodeURIComponent for encoding individual URL components (query parameters, path segments) or encodeURI for encoding a complete URL while preserving reserved characters like :// and ?.
3. Enter your text: Paste the URL or text you want to process. The output updates in real time as you type.
4. Copy the result: Copy the encoded or decoded output with a single click.

Understanding URL Encoding (Percent Encoding)

URL encoding, also known as percent encoding, is the mechanism by which special characters in a URL are converted to a format that can be safely transmitted over the internet. URLs can only contain a limited set of ASCII characters — primarily letters, digits, and a few reserved symbols. Any character outside this set, including spaces, non-English characters, and certain punctuation marks, must be encoded as a percent sign followed by two hexadecimal digits representing the character byte value.

The distinction between encodeURI and encodeURIComponent is critical for web developers. encodeURI is designed for encoding complete URLs and leaves reserved characters like colons, slashes, question marks, and ampersands intact, since these have structural meaning in URLs. encodeURIComponent is meant for individual components within a URL — such as query parameter values — and encodes all reserved characters, ensuring that values containing special characters do not break the URL structure.

URL encoding is essential for internationalized domain names, query parameters containing user input, API request construction, and data embedded in URLs. For example, a search query containing spaces must encode each space as %20 or + depending on context. Similarly, Unicode characters in URLs must be converted to their UTF-8 byte sequences and then percent-encoded, a process that can produce multi-byte sequences for non-ASCII characters like accented letters or CJK ideographs.