URL Encoder & Decoder – Percent-Encoding Tool

Private by design: this tool runs entirely in your browser. What you type is not uploaded to our servers.

About this url encoder and decoder

URLs may only contain a limited set of characters. Anything else, such as spaces, accented letters, emoji or reserved symbols that have a special meaning, must be percent-encoded: replaced with a % sign followed by two hexadecimal digits. This tool encodes and decodes text using percent-encoding, and breaks a full URL into its parts so that you can read its query parameters.

How to use it

Paste the text or URL into the input box.
Choose “Component” to encode a single value or query parameter, or “Full URL” to encode a whole address while keeping its structure characters.
Press “Encode” or “Decode”. Tick “Decode + as space” for data from HTML forms.
If the input is a complete URL, the breakdown below lists its protocol, host, path and each decoded query parameter.

Component versus full URL encoding

Choosing the right mode prevents broken links. Encoding a single value, such as a search term or a redirect address that you will put inside a query string, needs “Component” mode: it encodes characters like & = ? / # and : so that they cannot be mistaken for URL structure. Encoding an entire address with “Component” mode would also encode the slashes and colons and make the link unusable.

For a full URL, use “Full URL” mode: it leaves reserved structure characters (: / ? # & = and others) alone and only encodes characters that are not allowed, such as spaces and non-ASCII letters. The two modes correspond to the JavaScript functions encodeURIComponent and encodeURI.

How percent-encoding works

Unreserved characters, which are letters, digits, hyphen, underscore, period and tilde, never need encoding. Every other character is converted to its UTF-8 bytes and each byte is written as %XX. A space becomes %20, an ampersand becomes %26, and “é” becomes %C3%A9 because it takes two bytes in UTF-8.

HTML forms submitted with the application/x-www-form-urlencoded format use a plus sign for spaces, which is why decoding query strings often needs “Decode + as space”. In a URL path, a plus sign is a literal plus, so turn that option off when decoding path segments.

Debugging links and query strings

Paste a long tracking or redirect URL to see each parameter decoded on its own line. This makes it easy to spot double-encoding (a value containing %2520, where %25 is an encoded percent sign), missing encoding in a value that contains an ampersand, or a nested URL that needs a second pass of decoding.

Decoding fails with an “Invalid percent-encoding” message when a % is not followed by two hex digits or the decoded bytes are not valid UTF-8. That usually means part of the text was truncated or encoded with a different character set.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between encodeURI and encodeURIComponent?

encodeURI keeps characters that structure a URL (: / ? # & = and more); encodeURIComponent encodes them so a value can be safely placed inside a query string.

Why do I see %20 and sometimes +?

%20 is the standard encoding of a space. A + represents a space only in form-encoded query strings, so treat it as a space when decoding query data but not in paths.

What does %25 mean?

It is an encoded percent sign. Seeing %2520 means a value was encoded twice (the % of %20 was encoded again).

Does it support non-English characters?

Yes. Characters are converted to UTF-8 bytes first, so accents, other scripts and emoji encode and decode correctly.

Why can’t it decode my text?

A % may not be followed by two hex digits, or the data may not be UTF-8. Check for truncation or copy errors.

Is my URL sent anywhere?

No. Encoding, decoding and the URL breakdown all run in your browser.