Percent-encode a URL or a single value. Whole-URL mode keeps the colon, slash, question mark, ampersand and equals intact; single-value mode escapes everything – the difference between encodeURI and encodeURIComponent.
Show calculation steps
Processed privately in your browser — nothing you paste is uploaded, logged or stored.
How to use the URL Encoder
- Paste the URL or the value you want to encode.
- Choose the scope: "Whole URL" keeps the structural characters intact, "Single value" escapes everything so the text can sit safely inside one parameter.
- Enable "Encode spaces as +" only for classic HTML form submissions, where that convention applies.
- Click "Encode URL" and copy the result.
Frequently asked questions
What is percent-encoding?
It is the mechanism defined in RFC 3986 for representing characters that a URL cannot carry literally. Each such character is converted to its UTF-8 bytes and each byte is written as a percent sign followed by two hexadecimal digits – a space becomes %20, an at sign becomes %40.
When should I use whole-URL mode instead of single-value mode?
Use whole-URL mode when you have a complete address that merely contains illegal characters such as spaces: the colon, slashes, question mark and ampersands must survive or the URL breaks. Use single-value mode when the text is going INSIDE a parameter, where an unescaped ampersand would be read as the start of the next parameter.
Why do some tools turn spaces into plus signs and others into %20?
The plus convention comes from HTML form encoding (application/x-www-form-urlencoded), not from the URI standard. Inside a query string both are usually understood, but in a path segment a plus is a literal plus. When in doubt, %20 is correct everywhere.
What is double encoding and why is it a problem?
It happens when already-encoded text is encoded again, so %20 becomes %2520. The receiving system then decodes only one layer and shows a literal "%20" in your data. The URL Decoder has a repeat mode that unwinds this.
Does percent-encoding make a URL safe to trust?
No. It makes a URL syntactically valid; it says nothing about where the URL points. Encoding is not a security control, and encoded URLs are frequently used to disguise malicious destinations.
