URL Encoder & Decoder for Special Characters

Paste any text or web address above and this tool percent-encodes or decodes it the instant you type — no upload, no signup, no waiting. Pick encodeURIComponent for query values, encodeURI for full links, or switch to decode to turn %20, %2F, and %C3%A9 back into readable text. Everything runs locally in your browser, so the data you paste stays on your machine.

Why URL Encoding Matters

URLs can only safely carry a limited set of characters from the ASCII range. When you need to include spaces, slashes, semicolons, ampersands, accented letters, emoji, or any other non-ASCII text, those characters must be percent-encoded to keep links valid across browsers, servers, CDNs, and APIs. Skip the step and you get broken links, dropped query parameters, 400 errors from API gateways, and tracking tags that silently lose data after the first & or #.

Worked Examples

Here is how the same text changes depending on the mode you choose:

• red shoes & socks → red%20shoes%20%26%20socks (encodeURIComponent — safe as a query value)
• https://site.com/path with space → https://site.com/path%20with%20space (encodeURI — structure preserved)
• café/münchen → caf%C3%A9%2Fm%C3%BCnchen (UTF-8 bytes, then percent-encoded)
• a=1&b=2 typed as one value → a%3D1%26b%3D2 so the = and & are treated as data, not delimiters

Encoding Modes Explained

• encodeURIComponent — Encodes everything except letters, digits, and - _ . ~. Best for query parameter values.
• encodeURI — Preserves URL-safe characters like : / ? # [ ] @ ! $ & ' ( ) * + , ; =. Best for full URLs.
• Path Only — Encodes a URL path segment, preserving / separators.
• Query String — Encodes for application/x-www-form-urlencoded format (spaces become +).
• Custom — Choose exactly which characters to encode.

Features

• Real-time encoding and decoding as you type
• 5 encoding modes for different use cases
• Batch processing — encode multiple URLs line by line
• Full Unicode/UTF-8 support
• URL validation
• Copy to clipboard and download output
• Dark mode and mobile-responsive design
• 100% client-side — your data never leaves your browser

Common Use Cases

• Building API requests — encode search terms, IDs, filters, and redirect URLs before adding them to a query string so a stray & or = can't corrupt the request. See URL encoding for API development.
• Fixing broken links — decode a pasted URL to read what it actually contains, or re-encode a file name or path segment that includes spaces or slashes.
• Marketing & analytics tags — encode UTM values and campaign names so commas, spaces, and ampersands survive the redirect chain.
• Debugging double encoding — spot the tell-tale %2520 (an already-encoded %20) and decode once to recover the original value.
• Internationalized text — turn accented and non-Latin characters into UTF-8 percent-encoding for paths and parameters. Learn more in the UTF-8 and Unicode guide.

New to the topic? Start with What is URL encoding? or compare the JavaScript functions in encodeURI vs encodeURIComponent.