URL encoding (percent-encoding) replaces special characters with %-prefixed hex codes so they can be safely included in URLs. Spaces become %20, ampersands become %26, and so on. This URL encoder/decoder handles both directions instantly in your browser.

You'll need URL encoding when building query strings with user input, constructing redirect URLs with embedded parameters, or debugging URLs that contain encoded characters you need to read. Paste in an encoded URL to see the human-readable version, or paste plain text to get the encoded form.

The tool uses JavaScript's encodeURIComponent() and decodeURIComponent(), which handle UTF-8 characters correctly. This matters for international content — a Japanese character like \u3042 becomes %E3%81%82 in URL encoding. All processing is client-side, so your URLs (which might contain tokens or API keys) never leave your browser.

Tips

Use encodeURIComponent() for query parameter values and encodeURI() for full URLs — they encode different character sets.
Double-encoding happens when you encode an already-encoded string. If you see %2520 (which is %25 + 20), something was encoded twice.
Spaces can be encoded as %20 (standard) or + (form encoding). They're not interchangeable in all contexts.
The # character in URLs marks a fragment — if it appears in a query value, it must be encoded as %23.