URL Encoder/Decoder

Use our free tool to encode or decode a string of text.

What is URL Encoding?

URL encoding is a process that converts characters into a format that can be sent over the Internet. On the Internet, URLs can only be sent using ASCII characters. URLs often contain characters outside the ASCII set, so the URL must be converted into a valid ASCII format. URL encoding replaces unsafe ASCII characters with a "%" followed by two hexadecimal digits.

Why we need URL Encoding?

There are times when you need to pass characters that are invalid for URLs, such as " < > # % | ^ [ ] ` spaces. For example, whitespace is not a valid URL character, since it would be difficult to see the full URL in texts with whitespace.
When you need to pass reserved characters for URL, such as ! # $ % & ' ( ) * + , / : ; = ? @ [ ]. For example, ? is reserved to mark the start of query parameters, and if we do not encode ? in the path or inside query parameter, it might break the syntax.