URL Codec
Encode or Decode the URL string
About URL Encoder/Decoder Tool
Our URL Encoder/Decoder is a free online tool that helps you encode and decode URL strings safely. URL encoding, also known as percent encoding, is essential for web development as it converts special characters into a format that can be transmitted over the internet without causing conflicts or errors.
How to Use This URL Tool
Enter URL or Text
Paste your URL, query string, or text containing special characters into the input field.
Choose Operation
Click "URL Encode" to convert special characters to percent-encoded format, or "URL Decode" to convert encoded URLs back to readable text.
Copy & Use
Click "Copy Result" to copy the encoded/decoded URL to your clipboard for use in your applications or websites.
Key Features
- URL Encoding: Convert special characters to percent-encoded format (%20, %21, etc.)
- URL Decoding: Convert percent-encoded URLs back to readable format
- Error Handling: Clear error messages for malformed URL strings
- Copy to Clipboard: One-click copying of encoded/decoded results
- Real-time Processing: Instant encoding and decoding
- Unicode Support: Handles international characters and emojis
- Client-Side Processing: All operations happen locally for privacy
Common Use Cases
API Parameters
Encode query parameters for REST APIs, ensuring special characters don't break your URL structure or cause parsing errors.
Form Data
Properly encode form data for submission, handling spaces, ampersands, and other special characters in web forms.
Social Sharing
Create properly formatted URLs for social media sharing, email links, and marketing campaigns with encoded titles and descriptions.
SEO & Analytics
Encode UTM parameters, tracking codes, and campaign names for Google Analytics and other tracking systems.
Understanding URL Encoding
URL encoding (percent encoding) is a mechanism for encoding information in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). URLs can only contain a limited set of characters from the ASCII character set. Any character outside this set must be encoded.
How it works: Special characters are converted to their hexadecimal ASCII values, prefixed with a percent sign (%). For example, a space becomes %20, an exclamation mark becomes %21, and so on. UTF-8 encoding is used for international characters.
Reserved characters: Some characters have special meaning in URLs: : / ? # [ ] @ ! $ & ' ( ) * + , ; = These must be percent-encoded when used as data rather than delimiters. Use encodeURIComponent() for query parameters and encodeURI() for complete URLs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between encodeURI and encodeURIComponent?
encodeURI() is designed to encode a complete URL and doesn't encode characters like :/?#. encodeURIComponent() encodes all special characters and is used for query parameters. Our tool uses encodeURIComponent for maximum safety.
Why do spaces become %20 instead of +?
%20 is the standard URL encoding for spaces using percent encoding. The + symbol for spaces is a legacy from HTML form encoding (application/x-www-form-urlencoded). Modern APIs and URLs use %20.
Can I encode entire URLs or just parameters?
Our tool works best for encoding individual parameters or text strings. To encode an entire URL, only encode the query parameter values, not the protocol (http://) or domain name.
How do I handle international characters and emojis?
Our tool uses UTF-8 encoding to handle all international characters (Chinese, Arabic, emojis, etc.). They'll be converted to multiple percent-encoded bytes. For example, ñ becomes %C3%B1.
Is my URL data sent to your servers?
No, all URL encoding and decoding happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript's native encodeURIComponent and decodeURIComponent functions. Your data never leaves your device.
Privacy & Security
100% Client-Side Processing
All URL encoding and decoding operations are performed locally in your browser. Your URLs, query parameters, and data are never transmitted to our servers or stored anywhere. This tool uses JavaScript's native encoding functions for maximum security and privacy.