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. Reserved and unsafe characters are percent-encoded: a space becomes.

URL Encode Text examples

InputOutput
hello world & morehello%20world%20%26%20more
café/münstercaf%C3%A9%2Fm%C3%BCnster

How the url encode text works

  1. Reserved and unsafe characters are percent-encoded.
  2. UTF-8 is used, so non-ASCII characters become valid %XX sequences.
  3. 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.