URL Encode Text
Safely encode text for URLs and query strings — every reserved character is percent-encoded.
Percent-encode text for safe use in URLs and query strings. Free online URL encoder.
URL Encode Text examples
| Input | Output |
|---|
| hello world & more | hello%20world%20%26%20more |
| café/münster | caf%C3%A9%2Fm%C3%BCnster |
How the url encode text works
- Reserved and unsafe characters are percent-encoded.
- UTF-8 is used, so non-ASCII characters become valid %XX sequences.
- The result is safe to use inside a query string.
Rules and edge cases
- Reserved and unsafe characters are percent-encoded: a space becomes %20, & becomes %26 and / becomes %2F.
- Encoding is UTF-8, so é becomes %C3%A9 — two bytes, two escapes.
- Unreserved characters (A–Z, a–z, 0–9, - _ . ! ~ * ' ()) are left readable.
- Encode each query value separately; encoding a whole URL at once also escapes the :// and & that make it work.
Frequently asked questions
Should a space become %20 or +?
%20 is correct in a path and valid in a query string. The + form is only valid for application/x-www-form-urlencoded form bodies.
Why is my whole URL broken after encoding?
You encoded the full URL rather than a single parameter value, so the separators were escaped too. Encode the value, then paste it into the URL.