Encoders and Decoders
4 tools, free and without ads.
Encoding changes how something is written down without changing what it says. A string becomes safe to put in a URL, an image becomes text, text becomes a square of dots a phone can read.
These sit apart from the developer tools because the need is not exclusive to programmers — anyone who has had an address break in an email, or needed a link on a poster, has an encoding problem.
Every tool in Encoding
Encode text to Base64 or decode Base64 back to plain text.
Encode text for URLs or decode percent-encoded strings back to plain text.
Generate QR codes for URLs, text, Wi-Fi, contacts, email, and SMS. Customize colors and download as SVG or PNG.
Encode special characters to HTML entities and decode entities back to plain text. Supports named, decimal, and hexadecimal formats.
Encoding is not encryption
This is the one thing worth being clear about before using any of them. Base64 hides nothing: it is a reversible representation, decodable by anyone in one step, and a password stored in Base64 is a password stored in plain text with extra steps. Encoding exists so that data survives a channel that would otherwise mangle it, not so that data stays secret.
Base64 — turns arbitrary bytes into plain characters, so binary data can travel through something that only carries text — an email, a JSON field, a stylesheet.
URL encoding — escapes the characters that would otherwise end a URL early or change its meaning. This is why a link with a space in it breaks, and what fixes it.
HTML entities — the same job for a page: they let you display characters that the browser would otherwise read as markup. It is also the mechanism behind escaping user input safely.
QR codes — encode a short string — usually a URL — into a scannable image. Keep the payload short: the more you encode, the denser the pattern and the worse it reads from a distance or on a bad camera.
Related categories
- Developer Tools — JWTs, hashes and JSON, where encoded data usually turns up.
- Writing and Text Tools — Word counting and diffing, for the text before it gets escaped.
- Design and Colour Tools — Image compression, since an encoded image is a large image made larger.