What is Base64 encoding?
Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding that represents arbitrary bytes
using only 64 ASCII characters: A–Z, a–z, 0–9, +, and /.
Every 3 input bytes become 4 output characters, padded with = when needed.
The encoded form is ~33% larger than the original.
When should I use Base64?
- Embedding small images or fonts inline via
data:URIs in CSS or HTML. - HTTP Basic Authentication headers (
Authorization: Basic <base64>). - Encoding the header and payload of a JSON Web Token (uses URL-safe Base64).
- Safely sending binary data over text-only channels like email (MIME) or JSON fields.
Base64 is not encryption. Anyone can decode it. Use it for transport, not for secrecy.
UTF-8 and emoji handling
The native browser functions btoa() and atob() only work on Latin-1 strings and throw on non-ASCII input. This tool wraps them with a TextEncoder/TextDecoder pass so that UTF-8 text — including emojis and CJK characters — round-trips exactly.
Privacy
Encoding and decoding both happen entirely in your browser. Open the Network tab while you process — there are zero requests. Safe to use with sensitive strings, credentials, or internal data.