Online URL Encode & Decode Tool

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About URL Encoder & Decoder tool

An online URL encoder/decoder is a tool that can be used to encode or decode a URL. This can be useful when you want to change the format of a URL, or when you want to make sure that a URL is properly encoded.

This online tool helps you encode or decode a URL parameter, also known as percent encoding. URL encoding replaces unallowable characters with a % (percent sign) and two hexadecimal values.

What is URL Encoding?

URL encoding is the process of converting special characters in a URL to a percent-encoded format. This is necessary because some characters, such as spaces and ampersands, are not allowed in a URL. When these characters are encountered in a URL, they must be encoded.

This is necessary because some characters, such as spaces and #, have special meaning in a URL and need to be encoded to avoid problems. For example, a space character in a URL must be encoded as %20 in order to be correctly interpreted by a web browser.

URL encoding is sometimes also referred to as percent-encoding, since it uses the % character followed by a two-digit hexadecimal value to represent special characters. For example, the character # is represented as %23.

Percentage encoding is a key part of how the web works, and it's something that all web developers need to be familiar with.

What is URL decoding?

URL decoding is the process of converting a URL encoded string back into its original form. URL encoding is used to encode special characters in a URL, such as spaces, which would otherwise be interpreted as a delimiter.
URL decoding is the reverse process of URL encoding, converting a URL encoded string back into its original form. To do this, the percent sign and hexadecimal code are replaced with the character they represent. For example, %20 is replaced with a space.

URL decoding is often necessary when dealing with data that has been passed through a URL. For example, when data is submitted via a form, it is often encoded as a URL encoded string. In order to process this data, it must first be decoded.

Which Characters Are Allowed in a URL?

There are a few different characters that are allowed in a URL, and they are:

  • Letters (a-z)
  • Numbers (0-9)
  • Periods (.)
  • Hyphens (-)
  • Underscores (_)
  • Tilde (~)

Some characters, such as spaces, are not allowed in a URL. This is because they can cause problems when trying to access a website. If a space is used in a URL, it will often be replaced with a %20.

What are the benefits and limitations of URL encoding?

URL encoding, also known as percent-encoding, is a mechanism for encoding information in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). In URLs, certain characters are reserved for specific purposes such as identifying the start of a path or the delimiter between key-value pairs. When these reserved characters are used in an URL, they need to be encoded. URL decoding is the reverse process of URL encoding, i.e. it is used to decode information that has been encoded in a URL.

There are a number of benefits of URL encoding/decoding. First, it allows special characters to be used in a URL without causing any problems. Second, it makes the URL more readable and easier to remember. Third, it can be used to hide sensitive information in a URL, such as a user ID or password.

However, there are also some limitations to URL encoding/decoding. First, it can make a URL very long and difficult to remember. Second, it can potentially allow malicious users to insert harmful code into a URL.

How to encode or decode a URL?

Encoding and decoding a URI/URL is pretty straightforward with the Randomtools URL Encoder/decoder tool. Just follow the steps below, and you will get the URL converted:

To encode a URL:

  1. Enter the URL you want to encode in the input box above.
  2. Click on the Encode button to start encoding the URI. Once done, simply click on the copy button to copy the converted URL.

To decode a URL:

  1. Enter the URL you want to decode in the input box above.
  2. Click on the decode button to start decoding the URI. Once done, simply click on the copy button to copy the converted URL.

Why do we need to decode URL?

When a URL is decoded, it is possible to obtain the string representation of the URL before it was encoded so that the URL can be manipulated or utilized in other applications.

Which is the encoding type used for URL?

The ASCII character set is the only character set that can be used when sending URLs over the Internet. In order to convert URLs into valid ASCII format, they often contain characters outside the ASCII set. In URL encoding, unsafe ASCII characters are replaced with a "%" and two hexadecimal numbers. This percentage encoding type is easy to read and can be used to send URLs over the internet

Can you tell me what characters should be encoded in the URL?

The special characters needing encoding are: ':' , '/' , '?' , '#' , '[' , ']' , '@' , '!' , '$' , '&' , "'" , '(' , ')' , '*' , '+' , ',' , ';' , '=' , as well as '%' itself.

How do I format a URL correctly?

URLs typically have the form http://www.domain.com/index.html, in which the protocol is http, the hostname is www.domain.com, and the filename is index.html.

What are the common ASCII based characters used as Encoding?

Following are some common ASCII based characters:

Common characters after percent-encoding (ASCII or UTF-8 based)
newline space " % - . < > \ ^ _ ` { | } ~
%0A or %0D or %0D%0A %20 %22 %25 %2D %2E %3C %3E %5C %5E %5F %60 %7B %7C %7D %7E