Free Developer Tool
Safely encode special characters for URLs or decode messy query strings back into readable text.
URL Encoder
encodeURIComponent / decodeURIComponent — the same standard used by all modern browsers.How It Works
Use Encode to convert a raw URL into a format safe to send in a browser. Use Decode to convert an encoded URL back to readable text.
Drop in the full URL, a query string, or just a parameter value — whatever you need processed.
The output appears immediately. Special characters like spaces become %20, & becomes %26, and so on.
Hit Copy to grab the result. Use the Swap button to flip the output back as input for a quick round-trip check.
FAQ
Any time a URL contains spaces, special characters, or non-ASCII text. Spaces in URLs break links; they must be encoded as %20 or +. Query strings with & or = in parameter values must also be encoded.
encodeURIComponent encodes the entire string including characters like &, =, and ?. encodeURI leaves those characters intact as they're structural parts of a URL. This tool uses encodeURIComponent, which is safer for encoding individual parameter values.
In query strings (after ?), spaces can be encoded as either %20 or +. Both are valid. The + notation is older (used in HTML form submissions). Modern practice prefers %20 for consistency.