URL Encoder / Decoder
Free URL encoder and decoder. Percent-encode or decode text for safe use in query strings and URLs.
Worked example
Component mode turns hello world & more into hello%20world%20%26%20more — every
space and the ampersand escaped. Full URI mode turns
https://example.com/search?q=hello world into
https://example.com/search?q=hello%20world — only the space inside the query value is escaped,
leaving the URL's own ://, ?, and = untouched.
Frequently asked questions
What is percent-encoding?
Percent-encoding (URL encoding) replaces characters that aren't safe in a URL — spaces, &, =, ?, non-ASCII characters, and more — with a % followed by their two-digit hex code. A space becomes %20, & becomes %26, and so on, so the character can't be misread as part of the URL's own structure.
What is the difference between component and full URI encoding?
Component mode encodes everything that isn't a plain letter, digit, or a few safe symbols — appropriate for a single value going into a query string or path segment, since it also escapes structural characters like & and = that would otherwise break the URL. Full URI mode leaves URL-structure characters (: / ? # & =) untouched, so it's for encoding an entire URL without breaking its existing structure — only escaping things like spaces or special characters within it.
Why does encoding a space produce %20 in one mode and + in another?
%20 is the strict percent-encoding of a space. The + representation for spaces comes from a different, older convention (application/x-www-form-urlencoded, used in classic HTML form submissions) — the two aren't interchangeable in every context, so which one you need depends on where the encoded string is being used.