How to use
- Choose Encode or Decode.
- Choose Component for a single value, or Whole URL for a complete address.
- Paste your text. The result updates as you type.
- If the input contains a query string, its parameters are listed below, already decoded.
That parameter table is the part you will probably use most: paste a long API URL and read what it actually carries, without counting ampersands by hand.
About percent-encoding
A URL may only contain a restricted set of ASCII characters. Everything else — spaces,
Chinese characters, emoji, and the reserved punctuation that gives a URL its structure —
has to be represented as % followed by the two hexadecimal digits of each byte. This is
why 你好 becomes %E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD: six bytes of UTF-8, six escapes.
The distinction that trips people up is what needs escaping, and it depends entirely on
where the text is going. Inside a parameter value, & must be escaped, or it will be read
as the start of the next parameter. In the URL as a whole, that same & is exactly the
separator you want to keep. There is no single correct answer — only the right choice for
the position, which is why this tool makes you pick.
Note that encoding is not encryption or obfuscation. A percent-encoded string is trivially
readable, and anything you put into a URL should be considered visible — URLs end up in
browser history, server access logs, and the Referer header sent to third parties.