URL Decoder

Paste an encoded URL below. It decodes as you type, splits into parts, and tells you when something has been encoded twice.

Decode a URL

History

    Nothing yet.

    History stays in this browser. It is never sent to our server.

    What decoding a URL means

    A URL can only contain a limited set of characters. Anything else is written as a percent sign followed by two digits — a space becomes %20, a slash becomes %2F. That is called percent encoding. Decoding turns those escapes back into the characters they stand for.

    Most of the time you never see it. Browsers encode and decode quietly. You notice it when a URL is copied into an email, pasted into a log file, or built by a program that encoded it one time too many.

    When a URL has been encoded twice

    If you see %2520 in a URL, it was encoded twice. The first pass turned a space into %20. The second pass turned that percent sign into %25, leaving %2520. This tool notices and offers to decode again.

    Common characters

    Each of these has a page explaining what it is and when it causes trouble.

    See the full character table