URL encoder (percent-encoding)

How to URL-encode text

To URL-encode text, paste it in the input box with Encode selected and choose whether it is a single value or a whole address. Characters that are not allowed in a URL, such as spaces, accents and symbols, are replaced by a percent sign and two hexadecimal digits: a space becomes %20 and über becomes %C3%BCber. It all happens in your browser.

What percent-encoding is

A URL can only contain a small set of characters. Anything else, including spaces, accented letters, emoji and characters with a special meaning such as & and #, has to be written as a percent sign followed by the hexadecimal value of each UTF-8 byte. That is why ü, which takes two bytes, becomes %C3%BC.

Encoding examples

Value or whole address?

Encoding a value, like the text that goes after q= in a search link, must also escape / ? & = and #, otherwise they would be read as parts of the address. That is what encodeURIComponent does in JavaScript. Encoding a whole address should keep those characters, because they give the URL its structure, and only escape the rest. That is encodeURI. The example https://example.com/search?q=über & naïve encodes as a value to %C3%BCber%20%26%20na%C3%AFve.

Common mistakes

• Encoding twice. A % that is encoded again becomes %25, so %20 turns into %2520 and the link breaks.
• Encoding a whole address as a value. The :// and the / are escaped and the link stops working.
• Plus signs. In query strings a + can stand for a space, while in a path it is a literal plus. When in doubt, use %20 for spaces.

Private by design

The conversion runs in your browser. What you type, paste or drop is never uploaded, which matters when the text holds tokens, personal data or internal files.