Question 1

What is URL encoding?

Accepted Answer

URL encoding (also called percent-encoding) replaces special characters in a URL with a percent sign followed by two hexadecimal digits. For example, a space becomes %20. This is required because URLs can only contain a limited set of ASCII characters.

Question 2

What is the difference between encodeURI and encodeURIComponent?

Accepted Answer

encodeURI encodes a full URL and preserves characters that have special meaning in URLs like /, ?, #, and &. encodeURIComponent encodes a URL component (like a query parameter value) and encodes those special characters too. Use encodeURIComponent for individual parameter values.

Question 3

When should I encode a URL?

Accepted Answer

You should encode a URL when it contains special characters like spaces, &, =, +, %, or non-ASCII characters (like accented letters or emoji). Always encode query parameter values using encodeURIComponent before constructing URLs.

Question 4

Is this tool safe to use with sensitive data?

Accepted Answer

Yes. This tool runs entirely in your browser. No data is sent to any server.

Question 5

What characters does URL encoding affect?

Accepted Answer

URL encoding replaces characters outside the unreserved set (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, -, _, ., ~) with their percent-encoded equivalents. Spaces become %20 (or + in some contexts), & becomes %26, = becomes %3D, and so on.

URL Encoder / Decoder

What is URL Encoding?

encodeURIComponent vs encodeURI

encodeURIComponent

encodeURI

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