Paste your text below and use the buttons to encode or decode Base64.
All operations run in your browser. No data is uploaded.
Base64 is a clever way to turn any sort of complex data, like images, files, or text, into strings made up of just 64 safe characters. The original binary data can have all sorts of bytes that might confuse webservers and browsers, but Base64 translates those into universally readable text using A–Z, a–z, 0–9, “+”, and “/”. This process lets developers send and store things like images, audio, or tokens inside HTML, CSS, or JSON without them ever getting mangled during the transfer.
When you encode a file or string as Base64, you’re not encrypting or compressing it—just “packaging” it for safe travel. The web, email systems, and APIs all work best with plain text, and Base64 helps bridge the gap between binary and plain text. If you’ve ever embedded an image inline using a data:image/png;base64,... URL or sent an attachment in email, you’ve used Base64. Even authentication tokens and web cookies may use Base64 for safe handling across platforms.
Your privacy is important. When a Base64 tool runs entirely in the browser, your data doesn’t leave your device—no uploading, no server-side risks, and no chance of network interception. All encoding and decoding happens instantly, in your tab. Sensitive or confidential text, code snippets, or even cryptographic strings remain local, giving peace of mind for both end-users and developers. This approach ensures there’s no data retention or server logging, making it ideal for quick encodes or decodes on the go.
Base64 works by splitting each chunk of binary into groups of three bytes, turning that into four 6-bit numbers, and mapping them to characters in its alphabet. Strings not divisible by three are padded with “=”, keeping everything in order for decoding. Decoding simply reverses this process, reconstructing the original binary or text in perfect fidelity. It’s a reliable system—the encoded output may be 33% longer than the input, but it’s almost impossible for information to be lost or corrupted in transit.
Remember, Base64 is not encryption—anyone can decode it. For actual security, pair Base64 with HTTPS, secret management, or cryptography as needed.