URL Encoder / Decoder

What is URL Encoding?

URL encoding, also called percent-encoding, replaces characters that are unsafe or reserved in URLs with a percent sign followed by two hexadecimal digits. For example, a space becomes %20 and an ampersand becomes %26. This ensures that data placed in a URL — especially query parameters — is transmitted exactly as intended without breaking the URL's structure.

Our URL Encoder / Decoder offers two modes. Component mode (encodeURIComponent) encodes every reserved character and is correct for individual query-string values. Whole-URL mode (encodeURI) preserves characters that have structural meaning, such as : / ? & = and #, and is correct for encoding a complete URL.

How to Encode and Decode URLs

• Choose Encode or Decode using the mode buttons
• Toggle "Encode entire URL" on for full URLs, off for single query values
• Type or paste your input to see the result update instantly
• Use Swap to flip the output back into the input and reverse the mode
• Malformed percent-encoding when decoding shows a clear error message

When Do You Need URL Encoding?

You need URL encoding any time you put dynamic data into a URL: building API request query strings, creating search links, passing redirect URLs as parameters, or constructing links that contain spaces, special characters, or non-Latin text. Without encoding, characters like &, =, and spaces would break the URL or be misinterpreted by the server.

Decoding is equally useful for reading encoded URLs — for inspecting analytics links, debugging redirect chains, and understanding what data an application is actually sending in a request.

Privacy

Encoding and decoding run entirely in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server, so the tool is safe for URLs that contain tokens, parameters, or other sensitive data.