Base64 Encode and Decode Tool

Base64 Encode and Decode is a simple tool that does exactly what it says: it decodes from and encodes into Base64 encoding fast and effortlessly. Base64 encode your data or decode it into a human-readable format with ease.

Base64 encoding systems are often employed when it is necessary to encode binary data, particularly when that data must be stored and transported via media meant to handle text. This encoding helps to ensure that the data remains unchanged throughout transit. Base64 is widely used in a variety of applications, including email through MIME and storing complicated data in XML or JSON.

Secure and Safe

All communications with our servers take place via secure SSL encrypted connections (https). We promptly remove submitted files from our servers after processing them, and the resulting downloadable file is destroyed after the first download attempt or 15 minutes of inactivity (whichever is shorter). We do not store or examine the supplied data or uploaded files in any manner. For additional information, please see our privacy statement.

100% Free for Unlimited Use

Our tool is completely free to use. You no longer need to download any software for such easy activities.

Base64 Sncoding Specifications

Base64 is a catch-all word for a variety of comparable encoding techniques that encode binary data numerically and convert it to a base-64 representation. The word Base64 is derived from a specific MIME-content transport encoding.

Design

The characters used to build up the 64 characters necessary for Base64 differ between implementations. The basic approach is to select a set of 64 characters that are 1) part of a subset shared by most encodings and 2) printable. This combination makes it unlikely that the data would be altered in transit through services such as email, which were previously not 8-bit clean. MIME's Base64 implementation, for example, employs A-Z, a-z, and 0-9 for the first 62 values, then "+" and "/" for the final two. Other versions, often derived from Base64, have this attribute but differ in the symbols used for the final two values; for example, the URL and filename safe "RFC 4648 / Base64URL" variant uses "-" and " ."

Example

Here's an excerpt from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan:

"Not alone is man characterized by his reason, but..."

This is encoded as an ASCII byte sequence in MIME's Base64 scheme as follows:

TWFuIGlzIGRpc3Rpbmd1aXNoZWQsIG5vdCBvbmx5IGJ5IGhpcyByZWFzb24sIGJ1dCAuLi4=

The encoded value of Man in the above quotation is TWFu. The characters "M," "a," and "n" are stored as bytes 77, 97, and 110 in ASCII, which are identical to "01001101," "01100001," and "01101110" in base-2. These three bytes are combined in a 24-bit buffer to form the binary sequence "010011010110000101101110." Packs of 6 bits (6 bits can have up to 64 possible binary values) are translated into 4 integers (24 = 4 * 6 bits), which are then converted to Base64 values.