Base64 turns binary or text into a safe alphabet of 64 characters: images in CSS, credentials in headers, data in URLs. This tool encodes and decodes instantly, and unlike many online ones, it handles accents and emoji correctly.
Updated August 12, 2026, after a fresh review, with updated visuals and links.
Everything happens in your browser tab; nothing is uploaded anywhere.
What Base64 actually does
It repacks every 3 bytes into 4 characters from a safe set (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, /): the output grows by exactly a third but survives email systems, JSON fields and URLs untouched.
It is encoding, not encryption: anyone can decode it in a second. Never treat Base64 as protection for secrets.
The classic bug: naive implementations break on non-Latin text. 'Café ☕' must round-trip perfectly, and here it does, because the tool encodes UTF-8 properly before converting.
Worth remembering
- Decoding garbage? Check for line breaks pasted inside; this tool strips whitespace from input automatically before decoding.
- URL-safe Base64 variants swap + and / for - and _: if an API demands that variant, a quick find-replace after encoding does it.
Frequently asked
Is Base64 encryption?
No: it is a representation, like writing a number in another base. Anyone can reverse it instantly, so never use it to protect a password or secret.
Why does the output end with equals signs?
The = characters are padding: Base64 works in groups of 3 bytes, and the = marks how many bytes the final group is short of three (one or two).
