URL Encoder

Encode text into URL-safe format (% encoding) or decode URL-encoded strings.

About URL Encoding/Decoding

URL encoding, also known as percent-encoding, is a mechanism for encoding information in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) under certain circumstances. Although it is known as URL encoding, it is, in fact, used more generally within the main Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) set, which includes both Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and Uniform Resource Name (URN). This tool allows you to encode strings into this URL-safe format and decode them back to their original representation.

Why Use This Tool?

This tool is essential when you need to: safely include special characters (like spaces, '&', '?', '#') in URL query parameters or path segments; ensure that data transmitted in URLs is correctly interpreted by web servers and applications; or decode URL-encoded strings to make them human-readable or to process the original data. It's a common requirement in web development, API interactions, and data transmission.

Example Use Cases

  • Encoding a search query that contains spaces and special characters before appending it to a URL: 'my search query & results' becomes 'my%20search%20query%20%26%20results'.
  • Decoding a URL parameter like 'name=John%20Doe' back to 'John Doe' for processing in your application.
  • Ensuring that user-generated content is safely encoded before being used in a URL to prevent issues or potential security vulnerabilities.
  • Understanding how data is represented when sent via HTTP GET requests or in HTML form submissions (application/x-www-form-urlencoded).

Pro Tips

  • EncodeURIComponent vs. EncodeURI: This tool uses `encodeURIComponent()`, which is generally what you want for encoding individual URL parameters. `encodeURI()` is less aggressive and is meant for encoding an entire URI (it doesn't encode characters like ':', '/', ';', '?').
  • Space Encoding: Note that `encodeURIComponent()` encodes spaces as '%20'. Some older systems or specific contexts might use '+' for spaces in query strings. This tool decodes both '%20' and '+' (when decoding query string-like input) as spaces.
  • Character Set: URL encoding is typically based on UTF-8. This tool assumes UTF-8 for both encoding and decoding, which is the standard for the web.