How to Use URL Encoder / Decoder - Free Online Tool

Learn how to effectively use the URL Encoder / Decoder to encode and decode URLs, URI components, and form data with various encoding options

What is URL Encoder / Decoder?

The URL Encoder / Decoder is an essential tool for web developers and anyone working with URLs and web data. URLs can only contain certain characters safely, so special characters must be encoded using percent-encoding (also known as URL encoding). This tool encodes special characters to their percent-encoded equivalents and decodes encoded URLs back to readable format.

URL Encoding Explained

URL encoding converts unsafe characters to a format that can be safely transmitted in URLs:

Space: Becomes %20 or +
Special Characters: & becomes %26, # becomes %23
Unicode: Non-ASCII characters are encoded as UTF-8 bytes
Reserved Characters: :, /, ?, =, & are encoded when not used as delimiters

Example: "Hello World!" becomes "Hello%20World%21" or "Hello+World%21"

Encoding Types

The tool supports different encoding methods:

URL Encoding: Standard percent-encoding for entire URLs
Component Encoding: More aggressive encoding for URL components
Form Data: Encoding for application/x-www-form-urlencoded format
RFC 3986: Strict encoding following RFC 3986 standard
Custom Encoding: Encode only specific characters or character sets

Encoding & Decoding Options

Encoding Options:

Encode URI: Encode a complete URI (escapes all characters except: A-Z a-z 0-9 ; , / ? : @ & = + $ - _ . ! ~ * ' ( ) #)
Example: "https://example.com/search?q=hello world" → "https://example.com/search?q=hello%20world"
Encode Component: Encode a URI component (escapes all characters except: A-Z a-z 0-9 - _ . ! ~ * ' ( ))
Example: "hello world!" → "hello%20world%21"
Encode Form Data: Encode text as application/x-www-form-urlencoded (spaces become +)
Example: "hello world" → "hello+world"

Decoding Options:

Decode URI: Decode a complete URI
Example: "https://example.com/search?q=hello%20world" → "https://example.com/search?q=hello world"
Decode Component: Decode a URI component
Example: "hello%20world%21" → "hello world!"
Decode Form Data: Decode application/x-www-form-urlencoded text (+ becomes space)
Example: "hello+world" → "hello world"

How to Use

Enter the text or URL you want to encode or decode
Select an encoding or decoding option from the right panel
View the encoded/decoded result in the output area
Copy the result for use in your application

Use Cases

Encode URLs for API requests and web scraping
Decode URLs from browser address bars
Prepare form data for HTML form submission
Encode query parameters and URL components
Handle special characters in web applications
Process encoded URLs from external sources
Debug URL encoding issues in web development