URL Decode Online

Decode percent-encoded URLs back to readable text. Convert %20, %26, and other escape sequences instantly.

What is URL Decoding?

URL decoding reverses percent-encoding: it converts %XX escape sequences back into the characters they represent. A space stored as %20 becomes a real space, %26 becomes &, and %3D becomes =. You need decoding whenever you read a value out of a URL — a query parameter, a redirect target, or a path segment — and want the original human-readable text. Decoding is the exact inverse of the encoding the server or browser applied when the link was built.

How to Decode a URL

JavaScript: decodeURIComponent(str) for a single parameter value, decodeURI(str) for a whole URL.
Spaces: %20 decodes to a space. In application/x-www-form-urlencoded data, + also means space — replace + with a space before decoding.
Double-encoding: if you see %2520, the value was encoded twice — decode it twice to recover the original.
Invalid sequences: a stray % not followed by two hex digits throws an error; check the source string.

// JavaScript
decodeURIComponent("hello%20world%26foo%3Dbar");
// "hello world&foo=bar"

// Form data: + means space
decodeURIComponent("a+b".replace(/\+/g, " "));
// "a b"

// Python
from urllib.parse import unquote, unquote_plus
unquote("hello%20world")       # "hello world"
unquote_plus("a+b")            # "a b"

Related URL Tools

URL Encode Query String Parameters URL Encode Special Characters URL Encode Spaces — %20 vs +encodeURI vs encodeURIComponent URL Encode in JavaScript