What is URL encoding?
URL encoding, also called percent-encoding, replaces characters that are unsafe or reserved in a URL with a percent sign followed by their hexadecimal code. For example, a space becomes %20 and an ampersand becomes %26. This keeps URLs and query-string parameters valid when they contain spaces, punctuation or non-ASCII characters.
This tool both encodes text into a URL-safe form and decodes percent-encoded URLs back into readable text, entirely in your browser.
When you need it
- Building query strings where values contain spaces, &, =, ? or # characters.
- Passing URLs as parameters inside other URLs (redirects, OAuth callbacks).
- Reading an encoded link to see the real destination and parameters.
- Debugging API requests where parameters look garbled.
Encode vs decode
Use encoding when you are constructing a URL and need to insert a value safely. Use decoding when you have an encoded URL — full of %20, %3D and similar sequences — and want to read what it actually contains.
This tool uses the standard encodeURIComponent/decodeURIComponent behaviour, which is the correct choice for individual query-string values and path segments.