URL Encoder & Decoder: Percent-Encode or Decode Instantly

URLs can only contain a limited set of characters safely. A space, an ampersand or an accented letter has to be converted into a percent-encoded sequence like %20 before it can travel inside a link without breaking it. This tool does that conversion both ways.

Why there are two encode modes

Encoding a single value, like a search term you are about to drop into a query string, calls for escaping everything that is not a plain letter, digit or a small set of safe symbols. That is what the "safe for a query value" mode does, and it matches JavaScript's encodeURIComponent.

Encoding a whole URL is different. You want the slashes, colons and question marks that hold the URL together to survive, and only the genuinely unsafe characters escaped. That is the "full URL" mode, matching encodeURI. Run a complete link through the component mode by mistake and you will mangle the http:// and every slash in the path.

When you actually need this

Common cases: building a link that contains a space or an ampersand in a filename, passing a piece of text as a GET parameter, debugging a tracking URL that looks broken in a spreadsheet, or reading a raw server log line full of %2F and %3D sequences.

If you are building tagged campaign links with clean parameters like utm_source and utm_campaign, our UTM Builder handles the encoding for you automatically and is usually the faster path for that specific job.

Common mistakes to avoid

Double encoding is the most frequent one: running an already-encoded string through the encoder again turns %20 into %2520, which most systems will not decode correctly. If your output has a lot of %25 in it, you are probably encoding something twice.

The other common mix-up is using component encoding on a full URL, which escapes the slashes and colons that were supposed to stay put. When in doubt, encode only the specific value you are inserting, not the entire link.