Converting Base64 Back to Readable Text
Base64 encoding converts arbitrary bytes into a safe ASCII subset (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, /) so they can be transmitted through text-only channels. When you encounter a Base64 string in an API response, config file, or log, you need to decode it to read the actual content.
Our converter handles the full Base64 specification including URL-safe variants (where + becomes - and / becomes _) and optional padding (= characters at the end). It detects UTF-8 encoded text automatically.
Common scenarios: reading encoded values in environment variables, checking the content of data URIs (data:text/plain;base64,...), decoding obfuscated strings in source code, and inspecting SAML assertions or OAuth tokens.
Tips
- The encoded text is roughly 33% larger than the original — Base64 trades size for safe transport.
- For UTF-8 text with non-ASCII characters, the encoding/decoding handles multi-byte sequences correctly.
- If you see
=or==at the end, that's padding — it's part of the Base64 specification. - In the terminal:
echo "SGVsbG8=" | base64 -dgives you "Hello".