• Encode
• Decode

Example 1: Basic Text Encoding

Example 2: Special Characters

Example 3: URL-Safe Encoding

What is Base64?

Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding scheme that represents binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation. The term Base64 originates from a specific MIME content transfer encoding.

How Base64 Works

Base64 encoding converts binary data into a set of 64 characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, + and /) that can be safely transmitted over text-based protocols. The process works as follows:

1. Each three bytes (24 bits) of binary data are divided into four 6-bit groups
2. Each 6-bit group is converted to a character from the Base64 character set
3. If the input length is not divisible by 3, padding characters (=) are added to make the output length a multiple of 4

Common Uses of Base64

• Email Attachments: MIME uses Base64 to encode binary attachments
• Data URIs: Embedding images directly in HTML or CSS
• API Communication: Safely transmitting binary data in JSON
• Cookies and Web Storage: Storing complex data structures
• Basic Authentication: Encoding username and password pairs

URL-Safe Base64

Standard Base64 uses the characters + and / which have special meanings in URLs. URL-safe Base64 replaces these with - and _ respectively, making the encoded strings safe for use in URLs without additional encoding.

• Encode Text to Base64: Convert any text or string to Base64 format
• Decode Base64 to Text: Convert Base64 encoded data back to plain text
• URL-Safe Encoding/Decoding: Support for URL-safe Base64 variant
• Auto-Detection: Automatically detect standard or URL-safe encoding
• Copy to Clipboard: One-click copying of results
• Download Results: Save encoded or decoded output as a file