URL Encode / Decode

What is URL Encoding?

URL encoding, also known as percent-encoding, is a mechanism for encoding information in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). Certain characters are not allowed in URLs or have special meanings. URL encoding replaces these characters with a % followed by two hexadecimal digits representing the character's ASCII code. For example, a space becomes %20.

Characters That Must Be Encoded

• Reserved characters — Characters like :, /, ?, #, &, = have special meanings in URLs and must be encoded when used as data.
• Unsafe characters — Spaces, quotes, <, >, and { } should always be encoded.
• Non-ASCII characters — Unicode characters, emoji, and international text must be encoded as UTF-8 bytes then percent-encoded.
• Control characters — Characters in the ASCII range 0-31 are not allowed in URLs and must be encoded.

Common Use Cases

• Query parameters — Encode search queries, form data, and filter values passed in URL query strings.
• REST API calls — Encode path segments that contain special characters or spaces.
• Redirect URLs — Encode the target URL when it is passed as a parameter in redirect links.
• Internationalized URLs — Convert non-ASCII domain names and paths to valid ASCII-only URLs.

URL Encoding vs. URL Decoding

Use the Encode button to convert your text into a safe URL component. Use the Decode button to convert percent-encoded strings back into their original human-readable form, which is useful when debugging URLs or reading encoded query parameters in logs.