URL Encode / Decode

Percent-encode or decode URL components. Free and private, right in your browser.

Turn readable text into percent-encoded URL-safe strings, or reverse the process to reveal what's hiding behind all those %20s and %2Fs. Reach for it when you're building query strings, debugging a redirect with mangled characters, or trying to read a link someone pasted that's full of percent codes.

How to use it

  1. Paste the URL or text you want to encode or decode
  2. Switch between Encode and Decode mode
  3. Copy the converted result

Frequently asked questions

Should I encode the whole URL or just part of it?
Encode a full URL when it has no special meaning left to preserve (rare); usually you want to encode just one component, like a query parameter value, so that reserved characters (: / ? # & =) elsewhere in the URL stay intact and the address still routes correctly.
Why do spaces sometimes turn into %20 and sometimes into +?
%20 is the standard percent-encoding for a space anywhere in a URL. The + form is a legacy convention specific to application/x-www-form-urlencoded query strings (old HTML forms). This tool uses %20, which is safe everywhere, including outside query strings.
What happens if I try to decode text that isn't valid percent-encoding?
A malformed sequence, like a stray % not followed by two hex digits, will fail to decode. Double check you copied the full encoded string, since a truncated %2 or %E2 (a partial multi-byte UTF-8 sequence) is the usual culprit.