URL Encoder / Decoder Tool

What is URL encoding?

URL encoding, also known as percent-encoding, is a mechanism for converting specific characters into a special format so they can be safely transmitted over the internet. URLs can only contain a limited set of ASCII characters. When URLs contain characters outside of this character set (such as Chinese characters, spaces, `&`, `?`, etc.), these characters must be encoded. The encoding process replaces each unsafe character with a percent sign (`%`) followed by two hexadecimal digits that represent the character's value in UTF-8 encoding.

For example, the space character is encoded as `%20`, while the Chinese character "中" is encoded as `%E4%B8%AD`.

When do you need to use URL encoding/decoding?

• Passing data in URL query parameters:When you construct a URL containing a query string (for example `https://example.com/search?q=你好 世界`), the query parameter `你好 世界` must be encoded to prevent spaces and Chinese characters from breaking the URL structure.
• Handling filenames or paths containing special characters:If the path portion of a URL contains special characters, encoding is also required to ensure the server can correctly parse the path.
• Decode data retrieved from URLs:When your application reads data from URL query parameters or paths, it needs to decode these encoded strings to restore them to their original form.