Encode to Base64 Format
Enter your text or upload a file to encode it to Base64 format.
Decode from Base64 Format
Enter Base64 encoded data or upload a file to decode it.
Free Online Base64 Decoder and Encoder Tool
Enter your text or upload a file to encode it to Base64 format.
Enter Base64 encoded data or upload a file to decode it.
Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding scheme that converts binary data into a text format using a set of 64 ASCII characters. This encoding method is widely used in various applications where binary data needs to be transmitted or stored in text-based systems. The Base64 character set includes uppercase letters (A-Z), lowercase letters (a-z), numbers (0-9), and two additional characters (+ and /), along with the padding character (=).
Base64 encoding is essential in many scenarios:
The Base64 encoding process works by:
Our tool supports multiple Base64 variants:
Our Base64 decoder and encoder supports multiple character encodings including UTF-8, ASCII, ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1), Windows-1252, and various other encodings for international text. This ensures proper handling of text in different languages and special characters.
In addition to text encoding, our tool allows you to encode entire files to Base64 format. This is useful for:
Our Base64 decoder and encoder runs entirely in your web browser using JavaScript. This means:
Important: Base64 is an encoding method, not encryption. It does not provide security or protect your data from unauthorized access. Do not use Base64 encoding as a security measure.
Web Development: Developers use Base64 to embed small images, icons, and fonts directly in HTML and CSS files, reducing HTTP requests and improving page load times.
Email Systems: Email servers and clients use Base64 encoding to send attachments and non-ASCII content through systems designed for ASCII text only.
API Integration: Many REST APIs require Base64 encoding for transmitting binary data like images, PDFs, and other files in JSON payloads.
Authentication: HTTP Basic Authentication encodes credentials in Base64 format (though HTTPS should always be used for security).
Is Base64 encoding secure? No, Base64 is not encryption. It's an encoding method that converts data to a different format but does not provide any security. Anyone can easily decode Base64 data.
Why does Base64 increase data size? Base64 encoding increases data size by approximately 33% because it uses 4 characters to represent every 3 bytes of input data.
Can I encode large files? Yes, our tool supports files up to 100MB. However, very large files may take longer to process depending on your device's performance.
What is URL-safe Base64? URL-safe Base64 replaces characters that have special meaning in URLs (+ becomes -, / becomes _) to make the encoded data safe for use in URLs and filenames.