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Word Developer Utility Glossary
Home » URL Encoder / Decoder

URL Encoder & Decoder

Safely encode special characters for URLs, or decode percent-encoded strings back to normal text.

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Output

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What is URL Encoding?

URL encoding (or percent-encoding) is a mechanism for encoding information in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). URLs can only be sent over the Internet using the ASCII character-set. Because URLs often contain characters outside the ASCII set, they have to be converted into a valid format. URL encoding replaces unsafe ASCII characters with a "%" followed by two hexadecimal digits.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are spaces converted to %20?

Spaces are not allowed in standard URLs. The hexadecimal value for a space in the ASCII character set is 20. Therefore, when a URL is encoded, all spaces are replaced with the string "%20" to ensure the link works properly across all browsers and servers.