Format guide

URL-encoded text

Percent-encoding (RFC 3986)

URL encoding (also called percent-encoding) replaces characters that have special meaning in URLs (`?`, `&`, `=`, space, `#`) with their `%XX` hex escape. Multi-byte UTF-8 characters expand to multiple `%XX` sequences. Required for query strings, form bodies, and any URL component that contains user input. The standard is RFC 3986; JavaScript's `encodeURIComponent` is the most common implementation.

How to open a URL-encoded text file

Any text editor displays URL-encoded strings. Browser DevTools shows decoded forms in the Network tab's request inspector. Online decoders abound; most languages have a native function (`urllib.parse.unquote` in Python, `decodeURIComponent` in JS).

Primary use

Safely passing arbitrary text through URL query strings and form bodies.

Convert other formats to URL-encoded text

Text → URL-encoded

Convert URL-encoded text to other formats

URL-encoded → Text

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