Free URL Encoder & Decoder

URL encoding, also called percent-encoding, replaces characters that are unsafe or have a special job in a link with % and two hex digits. A space becomes %20 and & becomes %26. Letters outside ASCII are turned into UTF-8 bytes first, so é becomes %C3%A9.

%20 is an encoded space. 20 is the hex code of the space character, so a file named my file.pdf shows up as my%20file.pdf in a link. Paste the link on the Decode tab to turn every %20 back into a space.

encodeURIComponent encodes a single value and turns : / ? # & and = into % codes. encodeURI encodes a whole URL and leaves those characters alone. This tool uses encodeURIComponent by default and encodeURI when you tick Full URI mode.

HTML forms send spaces as + (the application/x-www-form-urlencoded format), while percent-encoding uses %20. This tool always writes %20. When decoding, it leaves + as a plus sign, so swap each + for a space first when you decode form data.

Inside a parameter value, encode everything except A to Z, a to z, 0 to 9 and - _ . ~. Reserved characters such as / ? # & = and + are fine as link structure but must be encoded inside a value. The default mode also leaves ! ' ( ) * as they are.

No. URL encoding only swaps unsafe characters for %XX codes and leaves letters and digits readable. Base64 rewrites all of the data in a 64-character alphabet and makes it about a third longer. For files and binary data, use the Base64 encoder.

Use it when you have a complete link with spaces or non-ASCII letters and want it to stay clickable. It keeps :// / ? & = and # in place. Leave it off for a value you are about to put inside a link, such as a search term or a redirect URL.

The input has a % that isn't followed by two hex digits, such as 100%, a code that was cut off like %E0%A4%A, or a byte that isn't valid UTF-8, like %E9 from older Latin-1 systems. Fix or remove that part and decode again.

%2520 means a %20 was encoded again, so its % became %25. Decode once to get %20, copy the output back into the input on the Decode tab, and decode again to get the space. Swap won't do it, because it flips to Encode.

Call decodeURIComponent(value) for a single value or decodeURI(url) for a whole link. They are the same functions this tool runs, so its output matches what your code will produce. Wrap the call in try/catch, because a broken % code throws a URIError.

No. Encoding and decoding happen in your browser, and your text is never sent to PixConvert. On the live site, analytics record clicks like Copy and the time a run took, plus the error text such as URI malformed when a decode fails.