Query String Parser

URL encode and decode are bidirectional web processes defined by RFC 3986 for transmitting data safely within Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). URL encoding converts characters that are disallowed or reserved in URLs (such as spaces, punctuation, symbols, and non-ASCII glyphs) into percent-encoded hexadecimal sequences like %20 or %26. URL decoding performs the inverse operation, scanning percent-encoded triplets and translating them back into their original human-readable text and UTF-8 characters.

To decode a URL online: (1) Copy the encoded URL or query string containing percent-encoded sequences (such as %20 or %3D). (2) Paste the string into the input field of our free online URL Decode tool. (3) Click Decode URL (to decode full web addresses) or Decode Component (for individual parameter values). (4) Instantly copy the resulting plain text. In code, you can use JavaScript's native decodeURI() or decodeURIComponent(), Python's urllib.parse.unquote(), or PHP's urldecode().

Encoding is the forward transformation of plain text, data, or symbols into a standardized, machine-readable format to ensure safe transmission across networks and URI parsers without breaking syntax rules. Decoding is the reverse extraction process, converting the standardized encoded sequences back into the original raw text, symbols, or binary content. In URLs, encoding turns "hello world" into "hello%20world", while decoding turns "hello%20world" back into "hello world".

In URL encoding, %27 represents the single quote or apostrophe character ('). In the US-ASCII table, the single quote character has a decimal code of 39, which corresponds to hexadecimal 27. When a URL parameter contains an apostrophe (for example, "John's Car"), it is percent-encoded as "John%27s%20Car" to prevent syntax ambiguities and potential database or query parsing issues.

You can decode an encoded URL using an online URL decoder tool or programmatically in software. Online: Paste your encoded link into our interactive URL Decoder tool and click Decode URL. The tool automatically identifies percent-encoded tokens and reconstructs the decoded URL. In JavaScript: Call decodeURI(encodedUrl) for full URLs, or decodeURIComponent(encodedParam) for query parameters. In Python: Use import urllib.parse; decoded = urllib.parse.unquote(encoded_url). In PHP: Use $decoded = urldecode($encoded_url);.

URL encoding and decoding (percent-encoding) is an internet protocol mechanism that ensures web browsers, servers, and APIs exchange data unambiguously. URLs are restricted by RFC 3986 to a subset of ASCII characters. Encoding replaces unsafe characters, spaces, and reserved delimiters with % followed by two hexadecimal digits representing the character's UTF-8 byte. Decoding reads these %XX hexadecimal values and restores the original characters so applications and users can read the information.

A practical example of URL decoding is converting the percent-encoded string: "https://example.com/search?q=developer%20tools%20%26%20apis" back into its human-readable form: "https://example.com/search?q=developer tools & apis". In this example, %20 is decoded into spaces and %26 is decoded into the ampersand symbol (&).

To decode any URL percent-encoding: (1) Identify the percent-encoded sequences consisting of a % sign followed by two hexadecimal characters (e.g., %2F, %3A, %20). (2) Use an online URL decoder or a programming language's decoding function (like decodeURIComponent() in JS or urllib.parse.unquote() in Python). (3) The decoder translates each hex pair back to its byte value and decodes multi-byte UTF-8 sequences into the correct character or emoji.

In computing and web architecture, decode means converting encoded or escaped data back into its original, understandable, and uncompressed representation. When applied to URLs, decoding specifically means taking percent-escaped byte sequences (%XX) and converting them back to original text characters, words, spaces, and Unicode glyphs.

To encode a URL online: (1) Paste your raw URL, text, or query parameters with spaces and special characters into our URL Encoder tool. (2) Click Encode URL (using encodeURI() to keep standard routing slashes / and colons :) or Encode Component (using encodeURIComponent() to escape all reserved characters in query parameter values). (3) Copy the resulting percent-encoded string for use in APIs, HTML links, or OAuth redirects.

URL decoding works by parsing the input string sequentially from left to right. Whenever the decoder encounters a percent sign (%), it reads the following two hexadecimal digits (e.g., 20), converts the hexadecimal value to a byte number (0x20 = decimal 32), and maps it to the corresponding ASCII or UTF-8 character (space). If the hex bytes represent a multi-byte UTF-8 character (like %C3%A9 for é or %F0%9F%9A%80 for 🚀), the decoder combines the consecutive byte sequences into the single target Unicode glyph.