How to Use the Base64 Encoder & Decoder
Base64 is an encoding scheme that represents binary data or text using only 64 characters — A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, and /. It's widely used for email attachments, API tokens, and embedding images or files as plain text.
Enter any text and click Encode to convert it into a Base64 string, or paste a Base64 string and click Decode to recover the original text. Unicode characters, including emoji and non-English text, are handled correctly through UTF-8 encoding.
This tool is handy for inspecting the payload section of a JWT token, decoding a Base64 image embedded in an API response, or simply encoding a short string so it isn't immediately readable. If the input isn't valid Base64, you'll see an error message instead of a broken result.
Keep in mind that Base64-encoded data is about 33% larger than the original — repacking 8-bit bytes into 64-character units adds overhead, which is the trade-off for safely moving binary data through text-only channels.
Frequently Asked Questions
No — Base64 is encoding, not encryption. Anyone can decode it back to the original content instantly, so it should never be used to protect sensitive information.
Decoding fails when the input doesn't match valid Base64 characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, /, and = padding) or was cut off. Make sure you copied the full encoded string.