Quoted-Printable Encode & Decode
Decode the =C3=A9 sequences in a raw email header or body, choosing the character set so the text reads correctly.
Input
Output
Why email looks like =C3=A9
Email was specified for 7-bit ASCII. Quoted-printable smuggles anything else through by writing each byte as =XX, while leaving plain ASCII readable — which is why a raw email is mostly legible with occasional runs of escapes.
A line ending in a bare `=` is a soft break, inserted only to keep lines under 76 characters. Decoding rejoins them.
Choose the character set to match the message: an old Korean email is often EUC-KR, and reading it as UTF-8 turns the escapes into replacement characters.
Frequently asked questions
Quoted-printable or Base64?
Quoted-printable when the content is mostly ASCII, since it stays readable and barely grows. Base64 for binary attachments, where quoted-printable would triple the size.
What is =?UTF-8?Q?...?= in a subject line?
An encoded-word (RFC 2047): the Q means quoted-printable and the charset is named inline. Paste the part between the last two ?s here.