URL Encoder and Decoder Online

What Is URL Encoding?

URL encoding converts characters that are not allowed in URLs into a safe format for transmission over the internet. Also known as percent encoding, it replaces unsafe characters with a percent sign followed by two hexadecimal digits.

When Do You Need to Encode a URL?

You need to encode a URL when it contains spaces, special characters, or non-ASCII characters. Common situations include encoding search query parameters, encoding file names with spaces, encoding form data before submission, and passing URLs as parameter values inside other URLs.

encodeURI vs encodeURIComponent in JavaScript

JavaScript offers two distinct built-in functions for URL encoding. Using the wrong one is a common source of bugs.

const url = 'https://example.com/search files?q=my query';
console.log(encodeURI(url));
// https://example.com/search%20files?q=my%20query

const param = 'https://google.com?q=test';
console.log('https://example.com/redirect?url=' + encodeURIComponent(param));
// https://example.com/redirect?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgoogle.com%3Fq%3Dtest

URL Encoding in PHP

PHP has two similar functions for url encoding: urlencode() and rawurlencode().

$query = "hello world";

echo urlencode($query); // hello+world (Historical encoding)
echo rawurlencode($query); // hello%20world (Modern RFC 3986 encoding)

URL Encoding in Python

import urllib.parse

url = "https://example.com/search filter"
query_args = {"q": "hello world", "lang": "en"}

# Encode a full URL path component
print(urllib.parse.quote(url))

# Encode a dictionary into a query string
print(urllib.parse.urlencode(query_args)) # q=hello+world&lang=en

Percent Encoding Reference Table

Below is a strict reference list of common characters and their exact percent encoded hexadecimal equivalent.

Frequently Asked Questions