Base64 Encoder / Decoder

What is Base64 Encoding?

Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding scheme that converts binary data into a string of ASCII characters using a 64-character alphabet (A–Z, a–z, 0–9, +, /). It's widely used to embed binary data — such as images, audio, or files — inside text-based formats like JSON, XML, HTML, email (MIME), and data URIs.

When to Use Base64

• Embedding images in HTML/CSS – Use data URI format: data:image/png;base64,...
• API authentication – HTTP Basic Auth sends credentials as Base64-encoded "user:password"
• Email attachments – MIME standard requires binary attachments to be Base64-encoded
• JWT tokens – The header and payload of JSON Web Tokens are Base64URL-encoded
• Storing binary in JSON – JSON doesn't support binary; Base64 is the standard workaround

Base64 vs Base64URL

Standard Base64 uses '+' and '/' characters which have special meaning in URLs. Base64URL replaces '+' with '-' and '/' with '_', and removes padding '=' characters. JWT tokens use Base64URL encoding. ENCODARA uses standard Base64 encoding.

Size Overhead

Base64-encoded data is approximately 33% larger than the original binary data (every 3 bytes become 4 characters). This is an acceptable tradeoff for the interoperability benefits in text-based protocols.