URL encoder / decoder online

How to encode or decode a URL

1. Paste the text or URL you want to encode, or the percent-encoded text you want to decode.
2. Choose Encode or Decode.
3. Choose component mode if you're encoding a single query parameter value (recommended for most uses), or turn it off to encode a full URL while leaving : / ? & = characters intact.
4. Click Run.
5. Copy the result into your URL, code, or query string.

Component encoding (encodeURIComponent) escapes characters like & = ? / : that have special meaning in a URL, which is what you want for a single value being placed inside a query string. Full-URL encoding (encodeURI) leaves those characters alone since they're structurally meaningful in a complete URL.

What URL encoding is and how the two modes differ

URL (percent) encoding replaces characters that aren't safe in a URL — spaces, ampersands, non-ASCII letters, and others — with a percent sign followed by their hex code, like a space becoming "%20". Component mode encodes aggressively, escaping characters like & = ? / : # ; that have structural meaning in a URL, which is correct when you're encoding one value to insert into a query string. Full-URL mode encodes less aggressively, leaving those structural characters alone because a full URL needs them intact to remain a valid, working URL.

Best practices

• Use component mode when encoding a single value that will go into a query string, like a search term or a redirect URL passed as a parameter.
• Use full-URL mode only when you have an entire URL and want to escape unsafe characters (like spaces) while leaving the URL's own structure (scheme, slashes, query separators) intact.
• Decode before reading a URL someone sent you if it's full of %XX sequences, to see the actual intended text.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Encoding an entire URL in component mode, which will also escape the :// and ?/& characters that make it a working URL, breaking it.
• Double-encoding text that's already encoded, which turns a literal %20 into %2520; check whether your input is already encoded before running it through again.
• Trying to decode text that isn't validly percent-encoded, which will fail with an error — check for stray % characters not followed by two hex digits.

Real-world use cases

• Building a query string parameter that contains spaces, symbols, or non-English text.
• Debugging a URL from a browser address bar, API response, or webhook that shows percent-encoded characters.
• Preparing a redirect URL to be passed as a parameter value in another URL.
• Reading encoded tracking or campaign links shared in marketing or analytics tools.

Limitations

This tool encodes and decodes standard percent-encoding as implemented by your browser's built-in encodeURIComponent/decodeURIComponent and encodeURI/decodeURI functions. It does not validate that a URL is otherwise well-formed, and decoding will fail with an error if the input contains invalid percent-encoding sequences (like a stray % not followed by two hex digits).

Privacy

Text you encode or decode is processed locally in your browser. It is not sent to a server, logged, or stored. See the privacy policy for the site's full data handling approach.

Troubleshooting

• If decoding fails with an error, check for a stray % character not followed by two valid hex digits.
• If encoding a full URL breaks it, switch off component mode so structural characters like :// and ? are left intact.
• If the result looks double-encoded (like %2520), your input was likely already encoded before you ran it through this tool.

Conclusion

Use component mode to encode a single value for a query string, and full-URL mode when you have a complete URL and only want unsafe characters escaped. For encoding text into Base64 instead of percent-encoding, see Base64 encoder / decoder.