URL Encoder and Decoder

URLs may only contain a limited set of characters. Everything else, including spaces, accented letters, emoji and characters with special meaning such as &, ?, = and #, must be percent-encoded: converted to UTF-8 bytes and written as % followed by two hexadecimal digits. A space becomes %20, "é" becomes %C3%A9, and "&" becomes %26.

Without encoding, a value containing & would be read as the start of a new parameter, and a space could break the link entirely.

The most common mistake is encoding a whole URL with Component mode, which also encodes :// and / and breaks the link. Use Component for the values you insert into a URL, and Full URL only to tidy an address that is already structured.

Decoding turns %20, %2F and similar sequences back into normal characters, which is useful for reading tracking links, log files and redirect URLs. If you see sequences like %2520, the text was encoded twice (%25 is the encoded form of %); decode it twice to get the original. Decoding fails if a % is not followed by two valid hex digits, and the tool will tell you.

For readable, SEO-friendly page addresses, create slugs with the Slug Generator instead of encoding titles. To embed binary or JSON data, the Base64 Encoder may be more suitable.

You want to link to a search for shoes & boots (size 10) on https://example.com/search?q=.

1. Encode only the search phrase with URL Component mode: shoes%20%26%20boots%20(size%2010).
2. Append it to the base: https://example.com/search?q=shoes%20%26%20boots%20(size%2010).

Without encoding, the & would end the q parameter early and the site would search for "shoes " only. Note that brackets are left as they are in Component mode; they are allowed in URLs.