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URL Encoder & Decoder

Q: Which encode button should I use?

Use Encode component when the text is a value that will sit inside a query string — it escapes &, =, ? and / so they cannot break the URL. Use Encode whole URL when you have a complete URL and only want to escape characters that are genuinely illegal, leaving its structure intact.

Q: Why do spaces sometimes become %20 and sometimes +?

Both are valid in different contexts. The + convention comes from HTML form submission and is only correct in application/x-www-form-urlencoded bodies. Percent-encoding uses %20, which is the safer choice everywhere else.

Q: It says my input is malformed — why?

A % sign that is not followed by two hexadecimal digits cannot be decoded. This usually means the string was only partially escaped, or a literal percent sign was never encoded as %25.

Escape the characters that are not allowed to appear raw in a URL, or read a URL that has already been escaped — with the choice between encoding a single component and encoding a whole URL.

100% private — everything runs in your browser, nothing is ever uploaded.

What this tool does

A search link contains a phrase with spaces, ampersands and accented letters, and pasting it into a query string breaks the request because those characters have special meanings. Percent-encoding replaces them with a safe representation, but there are two different jobs that are easy to confuse: encoding a single value that goes into a query parameter, and encoding a whole URL while keeping its separators intact. This tool offers both, plus decoding, which is the fastest way to read a tracking link full of %20 and %3D sequences and find out what it actually points to. Developers use it when constructing API calls, marketers use it to check UTM parameters, and anyone debugging a broken link can paste it here to see which part was escaped twice.

How to use it in three steps

Paste the URL, or just the value you want to work with, into the box.
Choose Encode component for a single value going into a query string, or Encode whole URL when the separators and structure must be preserved.
Press Decode to go the other way. Reading a decoded tracking link is often the quickest way to spot an unexpected redirect parameter or a double-encoded ampersand. Encode only once, then paste the result into the URL and decode it again to confirm nothing changed.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between the two encode modes?

Component encoding escapes everything that could be mistaken for URL syntax, including slashes and question marks, which is what you want for one parameter value. Whole-URL encoding keeps those structural characters so the address remains a valid link.

Why does my link show %25 instead of %20?

That usually means the value was encoded twice. Decode it once to see the intermediate form, then encode only the final value once before putting it into the query string.

Does decoding a URL tell me where it redirects?

It reveals the address and parameters written in the link, not where a server ultimately sends the browser. A short link may need a separate redirect check, but the decoded parameters often make the destination obvious.

Should I encode a value that will be placed in a JSON body?

No. Percent-encoding belongs in URLs and query strings. A JSON request body already has its own escaping rules, so applying URL encoding there adds literal percent sequences that the receiving API will treat as part of the value.

Privacy: URLs and query values are encoded or decoded locally in this browser tab, so internal endpoints, private search terms and links containing tokens are never sent to a server.

How to use it

Paste the URL or the value you want to work with.
Choose Encode component for a value going into a query string, or Encode whole URL to keep the separators intact.
Press Decode to go the other way — useful for unreadable tracking links.

Why it stays private

URLs frequently carry API keys, session identifiers and signed parameters. Decoding them in a local page means you can inspect a link you do not trust without handing that link to a third-party service.

Questions

Which encode button should I use?

Use Encode component when the text is a value that will sit inside a query string — it escapes &, =, ? and / so they cannot break the URL. Use Encode whole URL when you have a complete URL and only want to escape characters that are genuinely illegal, leaving its structure intact.

Why do spaces sometimes become %20 and sometimes +?

Both are valid in different contexts. The + convention comes from HTML form submission and is only correct in application/x-www-form-urlencoded bodies. Percent-encoding uses %20, which is the safer choice everywhere else.

It says my input is malformed — why?

A % sign that is not followed by two hexadecimal digits cannot be decoded. This usually means the string was only partially escaped, or a literal percent sign was never encoded as %25.

What is the difference between a URL and a URI?

A URI is any string that identifies a resource; a URL is the kind of URI that also says where to fetch it. In practice: every URL is a URI, and the URIs that are not URLs are mostly URNs like urn:isbn:0451450523, which name a thing without telling you how to get it. Day to day, when someone says URI in an API document they nearly always mean URL.