Free Base64 Encoder
Encode text or file contents to Base64 string. Supports UTF-8 text input and binary file upload. Your data never leaves the browser.
About Base64 Encoding
Base64 is an encoding scheme that converts binary data into a text representation using 64 characters (A–Z, a–z, 0–9, +, /). It is widely used to embed binary files in text-based formats like JSON, XML, HTML, CSS (data URIs), and email (MIME).
This tool uses the browser's built-in btoa() function for text and FileReader API for files, ensuring fast, private encoding without any server involvement.
Common Uses for Base64 Encoding
- Embedding images as data URIs in CSS or HTML
- Encoding binary attachments in email (MIME)
- Passing binary data in JSON APIs
- Storing binary content in text-only databases
- Encoding credentials in HTTP Basic Authentication headers
- Embedding fonts in CSS @font-face rules
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Base64 is an encoding scheme, not encryption. The encoded string can be trivially decoded by anyone. Do not use Base64 to protect sensitive data — use proper encryption for that.
Base64 output is approximately 33% larger than the original input because every 3 bytes of input are represented as 4 Base64 characters.
Yes. The file encoder reads any file as binary and outputs its Base64 representation. This works for images, PDFs, audio, video, archives, or any other file format.
Standard Base64 uses + and / which need percent-encoding in URLs. URL-safe Base64 replaces + with - and / with _. Use the URL Encoder for full URL encoding needs.