URL Decoder
Decode percent-encoded URLs back to their original readable form. Decode query strings and URL components instantly.
Quick answer:URL decoding converts percent-encoded characters back to their original form: %20 → space, %26 → &, %3D → =. Use it to read encoded redirect URLs, debug query strings in browser address bars, and inspect encoded webhook payloads from third-party APIs.
Azam Sharieff· Finance & Tools Reviewer
Last reviewed:
Make Sense of Messy Links
We've all copied a link from a massive site like Amazon or Google, only to paste it into an email and see a horrifying block of text packed with '%20', '%3D', and '%26'.
These characters are 'percent-encoded' to make them safe for web servers to read, but they make it utterly impossible for human beings to comprehend what the link actually points to. Our URL Decoder instantly reverses this process, returning dirty URLs back to standard, readable English.
Essential for Debugging
When developers are trying to monitor network traffic or debug why an API request failed, staring at an encoded URL string is maddening.
By dropping the payload into this decoder, you can instantly see the exact JSON or query parameters that were passed to the server, making it drastically easier to find the typo or missing value that broke the system.
What percent-encoding looks like
URLs can only contain a limited set of characters, so others are written as a percent sign followed by two hex digits. A space becomes %20, an ampersand becomes %26 and the rupee sign ₹ becomes %E2%82%B9 in UTF-8. Decoding turns that back into readable text, which helps when you are debugging links, tracking parameters or search queries.
Pitfalls when decoding
In form-style query strings, a plus sign often stands for a space, whereas in other parts of a URL it is a literal plus. If a decoded result still has %25 or other percent codes, the text was probably encoded twice and needs decoding again. Never trust decoded input from users without validating it. To go the other way, use the URL Encoder. For a broader explanation of text encodings see what is Base64.