Base64 Encoder & Decoder
Encode text to Base64 or decode Base64 strings back to plain text.
Encoding payloads for your API?
Recuro handles payload encoding and delivers HTTP requests on your schedule. Focus on your logic, not the plumbing.
What is Base64?
Base64 is one of the most common encoding schemes for representing binary data as ASCII text.
Defined in RFC 4648, it uses a 64-character alphabet (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, /) to encode every
3 bytes of input into 4 printable characters. If the input length is not a multiple of 3, the
output is padded with = characters.
Base64 is not encryption — it provides no security. It is purely a format conversion that makes binary data safe to include in text-based protocols. Common use cases include embedding images in HTML/CSS via data URIs, encoding binary payloads in JSON APIs, MIME email attachments, and storing binary data in databases that only support text.
The URL-safe variant (also called Base64url) replaces + with - and
/ with _, avoiding characters that have special meaning in URLs. This
variant is used in JWTs, OAuth tokens, and anywhere encoded data appears in URLs or filenames.
Sending Base64-encoded payloads to API endpoints? Recuro lets you schedule HTTP requests with custom bodies and headers on any cron schedule.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Base64 encoding?
Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding scheme that represents binary data using 64 ASCII characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, /). It is commonly used to embed binary data in text-based formats like JSON, XML, HTML data URIs, and email (MIME). The encoding uses 4 characters to represent every 3 bytes of input.
What's the difference between standard and URL-safe Base64?
Standard Base64 uses + and / as the 63rd and 64th characters, which have special meaning in URLs (+ means space, / is a path separator). URL-safe Base64 replaces these with - and _ respectively, making the encoded string safe to use in URLs and filenames without additional percent-encoding.
Does Base64 increase the size of data?
Yes — Base64 encoding increases data size by approximately 33%. Every 3 bytes of input become 4 bytes of output, plus potential padding characters (=). This overhead is the trade-off for being able to represent binary data in text-safe formats.
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