URL Decode

About decoding a URL

Percent encoding is how a URL carries characters it cannot spell directly: a space becomes %20, an ampersand in someone's company name becomes %26, a rupee sign becomes %E2%82%B9. It is why a link you were sent turns into a wall of hex, and why a redirect parameter with a whole URL inside it becomes unreadable. Decoding puts it back.

Paste a complete URL and this does more than unescape it. The breakdown underneath lists the scheme, host and path, then every query parameter with its value decoded, which is usually the quickest way to find the one parameter you actually care about in a long tracking link. Nested encoding is common in redirect chains: decode, look at the parameter, then press Result to input to peel off the next layer. A value that is still unreadable once the percent escapes are gone is very often Base64, which the Base64 decoder will open.

One difference matters. Text that came out of an HTML form uses a variant where a space is a plus sign rather than %20. If your input came from a search box or a form submission, tick Treat + as a space, otherwise the plus signs stay exactly as they are, which is correct everywhere else.

How to decode a URL

1. Paste the encoded text or the whole URL. The decoded version is already there.
2. The direction is worked out from what you paste, so plain text gets encoded instead. Use Encode or Decode to overrule it.
3. Tick Treat + as a space for anything copied out of a form or a search box.
4. Read the parts underneath to pick a single parameter out of a long URL.
5. Press Result to input to decode one more layer of a nested redirect.