What is Base64 encoding?
Base64 represents bytes using a small set of text characters. It is useful when a system needs to carry binary information through a text-based format. Examples include data URLs, email attachments and values passed between applications. This tool handles UTF-8 text, rather than uploading or decoding binary files.
Is Base64 the same as encryption?
No. Anyone with the encoded value can decode it. There is no password or secret key involved. Use Base64 to represent data, rather than to hide confidential information.
Why choose URL-safe Base64?
Standard Base64 uses plus and slash characters, and can end with equals signs for padding. The URL-safe variant replaces plus and slash with minus and underscore; this tool also omits padding when encoding that variant. Choose the setting that matches the application you are working with.
Why might decoding fail?
Check for missing characters, the wrong alphabet or damaged padding. This decoder allows whitespace between characters but rejects malformed values. A valid Base64 value can contain binary data that is not UTF-8 text; the tool will explain that instead of replacing it with unreadable symbols.
What does URL encoding do?
Some characters have a special meaning in a web address. A question mark starts a query, an ampersand separates parameters and a hash introduces a fragment. Percent encoding represents characters as escaped byte values, so a piece of text can be used without accidentally changing that structure.
Should I encode a whole URL or one value?
Choose URL component for an individual parameter value or path component. It encodes separators as part of that value. Choose Whole URL when you want to preserve the structure of an existing address. For example, encoding the value “tea & coffee” differs from encoding an entire search-page URL.
Why do some spaces become + and others %20?
Form-style encoding represents a space with a plus sign. This tool’s component mode uses %20. In form mode, a literal plus is encoded as %2B, so it stays distinct from a space. Select the matching mode when decoding, because a plus sign is not automatically a space in every URL context.
What causes an invalid escape error?
A percent sign must be followed by a valid byte escape, and those bytes must form valid text for this tool. A truncated value or mixed encoding can produce an error. Decode one layer at a time; “Use result as input” lets you inspect each step instead of repeatedly decoding without checking.
Read the encodeURIComponent documentation.
What are HTML entities?
HTML character references let you represent characters that would otherwise have a special meaning in markup. For example, < represents a less-than sign, and & represents an ampersand. Numeric references identify a character by its code point.
When should I encode text for HTML?
Encoding can help when displaying a code example or including text in an HTML document. This encoder handles ampersands, angle brackets and quotes. The optional non-ASCII setting also turns characters such as accented letters and emoji into numeric references.
Does encoding make every input safe?
No. The correct escaping depends on where a value is used: HTML text, an attribute, JavaScript and a URL have different rules. A generic entity conversion is not a replacement for a framework’s contextual escaping or a proper HTML sanitiser.
Will decoded markup run in this tool?
No. Results remain plain text in the output box. Named and numeric references with semicolons are decoded in one pass; the tool does not render the decoded text as a webpage. That means you can inspect a value without turning its tags into active content.