URL Decoder
Turns a percent-encoded link back into readable text, UTF-8 included.
Results
What this tool does
A URL copied out of an address bar or a log file is often unreadable — every space is %20, every accent is two percent groups, and a Portuguese search term looks like line noise. Decoding it back is how you find out what someone actually searched for, what a redirect is carrying, or why a link is not working. It handles UTF-8, so the accents come back as accents.
Formula
each %XX goes back to the matching byte, and + goes back to a space
Variables
| Symbol | Meaning | Unit |
|---|---|---|
text | Encoded | — |
OUT | Text | — |
SA | Size after | B |
Worked example
- Encodedpesquisa%20de%20caf%C3%A9%20%26%20ch%C3%A1
- Textpesquisa de café & chá
- Size after22 B
Limitations
- The calculation runs entirely in your browser. The values you type are never sent to a server.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the plus sign turned into a space?
Because in the query part of a URL it traditionally means one, inherited from the form encoding of the early web. It is a real ambiguity: a genuine plus sign in a query string should be written %2B, and one that arrives unencoded cannot be told apart from a space. Decoding it as a space is what browsers and servers do, so it is what happens here. In the path part of a URL a plus really is a plus.