URL Encode
Percent-encode a URL or query string, with component and full-URI modes plus optional form (+) encoding.
Input
Output
Percent-encoding, and which mode you need
A URL may only contain a limited set of ASCII characters. Everything else — spaces, non-Latin letters, and the reserved characters that give a URL its structure — has to be written as %XX escape sequences.
Which characters need escaping depends on where the value goes, which is why this tool offers three modes rather than one button.
- Component: escapes &, =, ?, / and #. Use it for a single query value or path segment.
- Full URI: leaves the reserved characters intact so an entire URL stays usable. Use it when encoding a complete address.
- Form: the application/x-www-form-urlencoded rules, where a space becomes + instead of %20.
Frequently asked questions
When is a space %20 and when is it +?
Inside a URL path or a normal query value it is %20. In form-encoded POST bodies and in some legacy query strings it is +. Pick the Form mode when you need the latter.
Why do Korean, Japanese or emoji characters become long %-sequences?
They are first converted to UTF-8 bytes, and each byte becomes one %XX pair. A single Hangul syllable is 3 bytes, so it becomes 9 characters.
Related tools
URL DecodeDecode percent-encoded URLs and query strings back to readable text, including non-Latin characters.Base64 EncodeEncode text or files to Base64, with standard or URL-safe alphabets and optional line wrapping.HTML Entity EncodeEscape characters that break HTML — &, <, >, quotes — with named or numeric entities.