URL Encoder/Decoder — Developer Code Samples

URL encoding (percent-encoding) replaces unsafe characters with a % followed by two hex digits. Python's urllib.parse, JavaScript's encodeURIComponent, and curl handle URL encoding natively with no external packages needed.

Try the interactive version online: Open URL Encode/Decode Tool →

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
text	str	Yes	String to URL-encode or URL-decode
safe	str	No	Characters to leave unencoded (default: empty string)
encoding	str	No	Character encoding (default: utf-8)

Returns: Percent-encoded URL string, or decoded original string

Code Examples

from urllib.parse import quote, unquote, quote_plus, unquote_plus, urlencode, urlparse

# Encode a URL component (query parameter value)
text = "hello world & more=stuff"
encoded = quote(text)
print(encoded)
# Output: hello%20world%20%26%20more%3Dstuff

# Use quote_plus for form data (spaces become +)
form_encoded = quote_plus(text)
print(form_encoded)
# Output: hello+world+%26+more%3Dstuff

# Decode percent-encoded string
decoded = unquote("hello%20world%20%26%20more%3Dstuff")
print(decoded)
# Output: hello world & more=stuff

# Build a URL with encoded query parameters
params = {"name": "Alice Smith", "city": "New York", "age": 30}
query_string = urlencode(params)
print(f"https://example.com/search?{query_string}")
# Output: https://example.com/search?name=Alice+Smith&city=New+York&age=30

# Parse a URL into components
url = "https://example.com/path?key=val&other=test#anchor"
parsed = urlparse(url)
print(parsed.scheme, parsed.netloc, parsed.path, parsed.query)

// Encode a URL component
const text = "hello world & more=stuff";
const encoded = encodeURIComponent(text);
console.log(encoded);
// Output: hello%20world%20%26%20more%3Dstuff

// Decode percent-encoded string
const decoded = decodeURIComponent("hello%20world%20%26%20more%3Dstuff");
console.log(decoded);
// Output: hello world & more=stuff

// Encode a full URL (preserves :, /, ?, =, &, #)
const url = "https://example.com/search?q=hello world&lang=en";
const encodedURL = encodeURI(url);
console.log(encodedURL);
// Output: https://example.com/search?q=hello%20world&lang=en

// Build URL with URLSearchParams (modern browser/Node 10+)
const params = new URLSearchParams({
  name: "Alice Smith",
  city: "New York",
  age: 30
});
console.log(`https://api.example.com/search?${params}`);

// Parse a URL
const parsed = new URL("https://example.com/path?key=value#section");
console.log(parsed.pathname, parsed.search, parsed.hash);

# URL encode with Python
python3 -c "from urllib.parse import quote; print(quote('hello world & more'))"

# URL decode with Python
python3 -c "from urllib.parse import unquote; print(unquote('hello%20world%20%26%20more'))"

# curl encodes query parameters automatically
curl -G "https://httpbin.org/get" --data-urlencode "query=hello world"

# Use jq to URL-encode (requires jq 1.6+)
echo '"hello world & stuff"' | jq -r '@uri'

# node one-liner
node -e "console.log(encodeURIComponent('hello world & more'))"

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