What is Base64 encoding?
Base64 is an encoding scheme that converts binary data into an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation. Concretely, Base64 maps input bytes into sequences of 6-bit groups and uses a 64-character alphabet (A–Z, a–z, 0–9, +, /) as defined in RFC 4648. It's commonly used to safely transmit binary data in text-only environments such as JSON, XML, email (MIME), or URLs (with URL-safe variants).
Why use Base64?
- • Safe transport of binary data over text-only protocols (SMTP, JSON, XML).
- • Avoids corruption caused by character-encoding mismatches or special characters.
- • Easy embedding of small images or resources directly into HTML/CSS/JSON.
- • Standardized (RFC 4648), widely supported across languages and platforms.
How to use this tool
- 1. Paste or type text into the Input box (left).
- 2. Choose UTF-8 or ASCII encoding mode.
- 3. Click Encode Base64 to convert, or Decode Base64 to reverse.
- 4. Copy the result or import a text file as input.
Common use cases
Use this tool to encode API payloads, embed images into HTML/CSS, create email attachments (MIME), store small binary blobs in JSON, or debug encoded tokens.
Related tools
Check other developer utilities on SoftPixelWeb: JSON Super Viewer · CSV → JSON · JSON → CSV · URL Encoder/Decoder