How to use URL Encoder & Decoder — Free Percent-Encoding Tool
- 1Choose the scheme you need, then encode or decode.
- 2Paste your text into the left-hand box.
- 3The converted result appears on the right — copy it, or press Swap to send it back through the other way.
About URL Encoder / Decoder
Percent-encoding is what keeps URLs unambiguous. Certain characters have structural meaning in a web address — ? starts the query, & separates parameters, # begins the fragment — so any of those appearing inside a value has to be escaped, or the URL breaks in ways that are hard to spot.
The distinction between the two modes matters more than it looks. Encoding a search phrase only needs spaces and accents escaped. Putting an entire URL inside a redirect parameter needs the reserved characters escaped too, otherwise the inner URL's own ? and & get read as part of the outer one and the link silently loses half its parameters.
The decoder accepts both %20 and + for spaces, since query strings in the wild use both.
Frequently asked questions
Why do spaces become %20?
A URL cannot contain a literal space, so it is replaced by its hex byte value, 20, marked with a percent sign. Some systems use + instead inside query strings; the decoder here handles both.
What is the difference between the two encoding modes?
The default encodes only characters that are never valid in a URL. Ticking the extra option also encodes the reserved characters / ? & = # — which you want when putting a whole URL inside another URL's query parameter.
When do I need this?
Building query strings by hand, putting a redirect URL inside a parameter, passing search terms with spaces or accents, and debugging links that arrive with %C3%A9 in them.
Does it handle non-English characters?
Yes. Characters are encoded as their UTF-8 bytes, so é becomes %C3%A9 and Hindi or Arabic text encodes correctly and decodes back exactly.
Is it free?
Yes — unlimited use, no sign-up, no watermark and no limit on how many times you run it.