How to URL decode a string with special characters
URLs can only contain a limited set of characters, so spaces, slashes, ampersands and non-English letters get “percent-encoded” — a space becomes %20, a slash becomes %2F. URL decoding reverses that so you can read or debug the real value. This runs locally in your browser.
Open the URL Encoder/DecoderStep by step
- 1
Open the URL Encoder / Decoder
Open the URL Encode / Decode tool — free, no account.
- 2
Paste the encoded URL or value
Paste the percent-encoded string and choose “Decode”.
- 3
Read the decoded value
The readable text appears instantly — %20 turns back into a space, %2F into a slash, and so on.
- 4
Copy or re-encode
Copy the result, or switch to “Encode” to make a value safe to drop into a query string.
Tips
- A “+” in a query string usually means a space (form encoding), while %20 means a space anywhere in a URL — the decoder handles both.
- If a URL was encoded twice you will see sequences like %2520; decode it a second time to fully unwrap it.
- Encode each query-parameter value separately — encoding a whole URL at once will also escape the :// and ? you want to keep.
Frequently asked questions
What does %20 mean in a URL?
%20 is the percent-encoded form of a space character. URLs cannot contain literal spaces, so they are replaced with %20 (or sometimes “+” in query strings).
When should I URL-encode a value?
Encode any value you place into a query parameter or path segment that might contain spaces, &, =, ?, /, # or non-ASCII characters, so it does not break the URL structure.
Is my data uploaded when decoding?
No. Encoding and decoding run entirely in your browser; nothing is sent to a server.