URL encoding explained: spaces become %20

Have you ever pasted a link with spaces and it broke? That's URL encoding — the system that makes URLs safe to share. Here's how it works and when you need it.

The rules

URLs can only contain a safe set of ASCII characters. Spaces, emoji, and special characters like & or # must be converted to percent-sequences — a space becomes %20, an emoji becomes a longer %F0%9F... sequence.

When links break

• Query strings with unencoded & or =
• Spaces in file names pasted into URLs
• Non-Latin text (Hindi, Chinese, emoji) in URLs

How to encode/decode

Use our URL Encoder — paste, click Encode or Decode, copy the result. Handy for building API requests and fixing broken links.