Base64 turns binary data into plain text made of letters, digits, “+” and “/”, so it can travel safely through email, JSON, URLs and HTML. This tool encodes and decodes text with full UTF-8 support, so emoji and non-English characters work correctly.
Choose URL-safe to use “-” and “_” instead of “+” and “/” and drop the “=” padding – the variant used in JWTs and web addresses. Use Encode a file to get a data URL you can embed directly in HTML or CSS.
Questions
Is Base64 encryption?
No. Base64 is an encoding, not encryption – anyone can decode it. Do not use it to hide secrets.
Why is the encoded text longer?
Base64 uses 4 characters for every 3 bytes, so output is about 33% larger than the input.
Why does decoding fail?
The input contains characters that are not valid Base64, or it was cut off. Whitespace and missing padding are handled automatically.