URL Encoder/Decoder

URL Encoder/Decoder

Represents love, beauty, and amiability — friendly, inviting, and pleasant to use.

What is URL Encoding?

URL encoding (also called percent-encoding) converts characters into a format safe for URLs. Since URLs can only contain a limited set of ASCII characters, special characters like spaces, ampersands (&), and non-ASCII characters (like emojis 🎉) must be encoded using percent-sign notation.

Query Parameters

When building search URLs like ?q=hello world, the space must be encoded as %20or + to form a valid URL.

API Requests

REST APIs often require properly encoded URLs. Special characters in paths or parameters can break requests if not encoded correctly.

Common URL Encodings

CharacterEncodedDescription
(space)%20Space
!%21Exclamation mark
#%23Hash/Pound
$%24Dollar sign
%%25Percent sign
&%26Ampersand
'%27Single quote
(%28Open parenthesis
)%29Close parenthesis
+%2BPlus sign

Frequently Asked Questions

What is URL encoding?▼
URL encoding (percent-encoding) is a method to encode special characters in URLs using percent signs followed by hex values. For example, a space becomes %20.
What's the difference between encodeURI and encodeURIComponent?▼
encodeURI encodes a full URL but preserves separators like /, ?, and #. encodeURIComponent encodes everything, making it safe for query parameter values.
Why do spaces become %20 or +?▼
Both are valid. %20 is the standard percent-encoding. The + sign is an older convention from HTML form encoding (application/x-www-form-urlencoded).
Is my data secure when using this tool?▼
Yes! All processing happens 100% in your browser. Your data is never sent to any server.
Can I encode emojis and special characters?▼
Absolutely! This tool fully supports UTF-8, so emojis, Chinese characters, Arabic text, and other Unicode characters are encoded correctly.
What is recursive URL decoding?▼
Sometimes URLs are encoded multiple times (e.g., %252520 → %2520 → %20 → space). Recursive decoding keeps decoding until no more changes occur.