What is URL encoding?
URLs can only contain a limited set of ASCII characters. Spaces, ampersands, equals signs and non-English letters must be converted to a safe format using percent-encoding — each unsafe byte becomes a % followed by two hex digits. For example, a space becomes %20 and the euro sign becomes %E2%82%AC.
When you need it
Use URL encoding when building query strings, passing values through form submissions, constructing API requests, or sharing links that contain special characters. Use URL decoding to read log files, debug redirect chains, or inspect what a raw query string actually contains.
Private and instant
Everything runs inside your browser using the native encodeURIComponent and decodeURIComponent functions. No data is sent to any server.
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