Explosion Tools

URL Encoder Decoder

Encode and decode URL-encoded strings. Free, no signup, works in your browser.

Output will appear here…

All encoding/decoding happens in your browser. No data is sent to any server.

About URL Encoder Decoder

This tool encodes text for safe inclusion in URLs or decodes percent-encoded (URL-encoded) strings back to readable text. Three encoding modes are available: Component mode (encodeURIComponent) for query parameter values, URI mode (encodeURI) for full URLs preserving path separators, and Full mode for encoding every byte. Supports all Unicode characters including emoji through UTF-8 encoding. Essential for building API requests, debugging query strings, and working with URL parameters.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between the three encoding modes?
Component mode (encodeURIComponent) is the most common — it encodes everything except basic alphanumerics, useful for query parameter values. URI mode (encodeURI) preserves URL-reserved characters like :/?#@, useful for encoding full URLs. Full mode encodes every single byte as %XX, useful for maximum compatibility.
What is percent encoding?
Percent encoding (URL encoding) replaces unsafe characters with a percent sign followed by two hex digits representing the byte value. For example, a space becomes %20, and an ampersand becomes %26. This ensures special characters are transmitted safely in URLs.
How are non-ASCII characters encoded?
Non-ASCII characters (like é, ñ, or emoji) are first converted to their UTF-8 byte sequence, then each byte is percent-encoded individually. For example, é (U+00E9) becomes %C3%A9 because its UTF-8 encoding is two bytes: 0xC3 and 0xA9.

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