Base 64 Encoder

Quickly convert your text or binary data into a Base64 encoded string with our free online Base64 Encoder. This tool is essential for developers needing to safely transmit data over media that are designed to handle textual data, ensuring data integrity during transport. For your privacy, all processing happens right in your browser. Your data is never sent to us or logged. (looking for decoding?)

What is Base64?

The term Base64 originates from MIME content transfer encoding. It refers to a group of encoding schemes that represent binary data in an ASCII format by translating it into a radix-64 representation.

How Base64 Encoding Works

Base64 encoding is primarily used when binary data needs to be stored or transferred over systems designed to handle only text. This ensures that the data remains intact and unmodified during transit. Common applications include encoding email attachments via MIME and embedding complex data within XML or JSON files.

The specific set of 64 characters used can vary by implementation, but the goal is always to use a subset of characters common to most encodings. This makes the data resilient when passing through legacy information systems that may not be 8-bit clean. The standard implementation (RFC 4648) uses A-Z, a-z, and 0-9 for the first 62 values, with different symbols (typically + and /) used for the final two values.

Base64 Index Table (RFC 4648)