Paste your text below to convert special characters to URL-encoded format:
Privacy Guaranteed: Your text is processed locally in your browser. Nothing is stored or sent to any server.
How to Use the URL Encoder
Our tool is designed for simplicity and speed. Follow these three easy steps to encode your text:
- Paste Your Text: Copy the string, URL, or block of text you want to encode and paste it into the “Enter text to encode” input box.
- Instant Encoding: The tool automatically processes your input as you type. The correctly encoded output will appear in real-time in the “Encoded Result” box below. No need to click any buttons to convert!
- Copy and Use: Click the “Copy Result” button to instantly copy the encoded string to your clipboard. You can then paste it directly into your application, code, or browser address bar.
Practical Use Cases for URL Encoding
URL encoding is not just a technical requirement; it’s a crucial part of many everyday web tasks. Here are some real-world examples where proper encoding is essential.
Creating Search Queries
When you build a URL to perform a search, the query term must be encoded.
Original: https://example.com/search?q=url encoding & decoding
Correctly Encoded: https://example.com/search?q=url%20encoding%20%26%20decoding
Passing Parameters to an API
When making a GET request to an API, you often pass data as URL parameters. If a parameter value contains special characters, it must be encoded.
Original Param: callback=https://my-app.com/handle?user=test
Encoded Param: callback=https%3A%2F%2Fmy-app.com%2Fhandle%3Fuser%3Dtest
What is URL Encoding?
URL encoding, also known as percent-encoding, is a mechanism for converting characters into a format that can be transmitted over the internet. Since URLs can only be sent using the ASCII character set, any characters outside this set must be converted into a valid ASCII format.
URL encoding replaces unsafe ASCII characters with a “%” followed by two hexadecimal digits corresponding to the character’s ASCII value.
Common URL Encoding Characters
Certain characters have special meanings in URLs (reserved characters) or are not allowed (unsafe characters). Here is a reference table of common characters and their percent-encoded equivalents.
| Character | Description | Encoded Value |
|---|---|---|
| (space) | Space character | %20 |
| % | Percent Sign | %25 |
| & | Ampersand | %26 |
| + | Plus Sign | %2B |
| / | Forward Slash | %2F |
| ? | Question Mark | %3F |
| # | Hash / Pound | %23 |
| = | Equals Sign | %3D |
| : | Colon | %3A |
| ; | Semicolon | %3B |
| @ | At Symbol | %40 |
Frequently Asked Questions
URL encoding is used to convert characters into a format that can be transmitted over the internet. Since URLs can only contain certain characters from the ASCII character set, any characters outside this set must be converted to a valid ASCII format using percent-encoding.
Characters that must be encoded include: spaces, ampersands (&), percent signs (%), plus signs (+), equal signs (=), question marks (?), slashes (/), and any non-ASCII characters. Reserved characters like :, /, ?, #, [, ], @, !, $, ‘, (, ), *, ,, ; should also be encoded when not used for their special purposes in a URL.
URL encoding and URL escaping are essentially the same process. Both refer to the method of converting characters into a percent-encoded format for safe transmission in URLs. The terms are often used interchangeably in web development.
No, all processing happens locally in your browser. Your text is never sent to any server, ensuring complete privacy. The tool works entirely on your device, so you can encode sensitive information without security concerns.
Yes, you can paste entire URLs into the input field. The tool will properly encode any special characters while preserving the URL structure. However, note that certain characters like :, /, ?, and # have special meaning in URLs and should not be encoded in the protocol and domain parts.
encodeURI is meant for encoding entire URIs and preserves characters that have special meaning in URIs (: / ; ? = @ & + $ , #). encodeURIComponent is meant for encoding URI components (like query string parameters) and encodes all characters except: A-Z a-z 0-9 – _ . ! ~ * ‘ ( ). Our tool uses encodeURIComponent for maximum compatibility.
To decode a URL-encoded string, you need a URL Decoder tool. The decoding process converts percent-encoded sequences back to their original characters. For example, %20 becomes a space, and %3F becomes a question mark. You can find such a tool on our website.
Each special character is replaced by a three-character sequence starting with %. Non-ASCII characters (like emojis or accented letters) are represented by multiple percent-encoded bytes. This can make encoded URLs significantly longer than the original text, especially when dealing with non-Latin characters.
No, URL encoding and HTML encoding are different. URL encoding uses percent signs (%) followed by hexadecimal digits to represent special characters, while HTML encoding uses character entities that start with an ampersand (&) and end with a semicolon (;). For example, a space is %20 in URL encoding but in HTML encoding.
Absolutely! Our URL encoder is perfect for API development. It helps you properly encode query parameters, request bodies, and other components that need to be transmitted in URLs. The tool follows standard encoding practices that are compatible with all modern web APIs.