URL Encoder & Decoder

Percent-encode query parameters or decode percent-encoded URLs with UTF-8 support and RFC 3986 compliance.

Category: URL & Internet

How to Use URL Encoder & Decoder

Enter or paste any raw text, query parameter, or percent-encoded URL string into the workspace.
Select the Mode: Encode URL to percent-encode unsafe characters or Decode URL to restore human-readable text.
Click Execute to instantly process the string with full UTF-8 multi-byte character support.
Copy the converted output directly to your clipboard or download as a text file.

Related URL & Internet Tools

URL Parser & Query Extractor
Parse complex URLs into protocol, hostname, path, port, hash, and individual query parameters with instant decoding.
URL Cleaner & Tracking Stripper
Remove UTM parameters, fbclid, gclid, and analytics trackers to create clean, shareable canonical URLs.
IPv4 Subnet & CIDR Calculator
Calculate network address, broadcast address, netmask, wildcard mask, and usable host IP ranges with accurate /31 and /32 support.
HTTP Status Code & Security Headers Inspector
Look up definitions, causes, and troubleshooting fixes for HTTP 1xx, 2xx, 3xx, 4xx, and 5xx status codes with security header guides.
DNS Zone Records & Lookup Formatter
Format, validate, and construct BIND DNS zone records (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, SPF, DMARC) with live DNS query verification.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between %20 and + for space encoding in URLs?

RFC 3986 (Uniform Resource Identifier standard) specifies '%20' as the official percent-encoding for a space character across all URI components (path, query, and fragment). However, the HTML specification for web forms (MIME type application/x-www-form-urlencoded) defines the plus sign '+' as shorthand for a space character specifically within query parameter values. EverySolve URL Encoder/Decoder handles both conventions: decoding '+' as a space when decoding query strings and outputting standard '%20' when percent-encoding.

What is the difference between encodeURI and encodeURIComponent in JavaScript?

In web development, encodeURI is intended to encode a complete, full URL. It preserves protocol delimiters, colons, slashes, and question marks (e.g., https://example.com/search?q=test) without breaking the overall URL structure. In contrast, encodeURIComponent is designed to encode individual query parameter values or keys (e.g., search terms containing '&', '=', or '?'). It percent-encodes all reserved structural characters so they are treated as literal data rather than delimiters.

Why do reserved characters need to be percent-encoded in URLs?

URLs have a limited character set defined by RFC 3986. Reserved characters (such as '?', '&', '=', '/', ':', '#', and '@') have special syntactic meanings as component delimiters. If an unencoded parameter value contains an ampersand '&' or equals sign '=', a web server cannot distinguish between the query parameter boundary and the actual data content. Percent-encoding replaces these characters with a '%' followed by two hexadecimal digits (e.g., '&' becomes '%26' and '=' becomes '%3D'), preserving data integrity.

Does this tool support non-ASCII characters, international alphabets, and emojis?

Yes. Modern URI specifications encode characters according to UTF-8 multi-byte character encoding before percent-encoding each individual byte. For example, the Euro currency symbol '€' (3 bytes in UTF-8: E2 82 AC) becomes '%E2%82%AC', the Indian Rupee symbol '₹' (E2 82 B9) becomes '%E2%82%B9', and emojis like '🚀' (4 bytes: F0 9F 9A 80) become '%F0%9F%9A%80'.

What happens when decoding an invalid or malformed percent-encoded sequence?

A malformed percent-encoded sequence occurs when a percent sign '%' is not followed by two valid hexadecimal digits (0-9, A-F), or when a multi-byte UTF-8 byte sequence is incomplete or invalid (for example, '%E0%A4' missing its third byte). Our decoder safely catches URIError exceptions, reports the exact location of the malformed sequence, and prevents application crashes.