Understanding URL Encoding

Have you ever looked at a URL and seen a bunch of %20 or %3D characters sprinkled throughout it? That's URL Encoding at work! 🕵️‍♂️

What is URL Encoding?

URLs can only be sent over the internet using the ASCII character set. Furthermore, certain characters have special meanings in a URL (like ?, &, =, and /).

If you want to include data in a URL (like a search term with a space, or a callback URL), you must "encode" it. URL Encoding replaces unsafe ASCII characters with a % followed by two hexadecimal digits.

For example:

• A space ( ) becomes %20
• An ampersand (&) becomes %26
• An equals sign (=) becomes %3D

Why Use a Tool?

When debugging API requests, analyzing webhook payloads, or reading server logs, you'll often encounter encoded URLs that are completely unreadable. A URL Encoder/Decoder lets you instantly translate those messy strings back into human-readable text, or encode your own text so it's safe to use in a web request!