[Online Tool] Base64 Encoder & Decoder Online — Supports Chinese and Multiple Character Encodings

During development and debugging, Base64 shows up almost every day: JWT token payloads, HTTP Basic Auth credentials, API response fields…

Toolshu's Base64 Encoder / Decoder converts text to Base64 and Base64 back to text — straightforward, with support for Chinese and dozens of character encodings. All processing runs locally in your browser; no data is uploaded.

🔗 Tool URL: https://toolshu.com/en/base64

How to Use It

The page has two operations:

Encode (Text → Base64): Paste or type your source text, select a character encoding, click Encode, and the result appears in the output box — copy with one click.

Decode (Base64 → Text): Paste a Base64 string, select the character encoding, click Decode, and the original content is restored.

A Clear input button in the top-right corner makes processing multiple values quick and easy.

Why Does Character Encoding Matter?

This is something many tools get wrong.

Pure English text is no problem. But as soon as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or special symbols are involved, choosing the wrong encoding produces garbled output on decode.

This tool supports dozens of character encodings, including:

• UTF-8 (recommended — the go-to for Chinese, Emoji, and multilingual content)
• GB18030 (compatible with GBK and GB2312 — for legacy system data)
• Big5 (Traditional Chinese)
• Shift_JIS / EUC-KR (Japanese and Korean)
• Various ISO-8859 and Windows codepage encodings (Western and Eastern European languages)
• Hex — convert text to a hexadecimal string, or convert Hex back to text

When in doubt, choose UTF-8 — it covers the vast majority of cases.

Is Base64 Encryption?

No. This is the most common misconception.

Base64 is an encoding format, not an encryption algorithm. It converts binary data into printable ASCII characters to make it safe for text-based protocols — it provides zero confidentiality.

Anyone with a Base64 string can decode it directly, no key required. Encoding sensitive information in Base64 before transmitting it offers no security protection whatsoever. For real encryption, you need an algorithm like AES — Toolshu has a dedicated tool for that too: https://toolshu.com/en/aes

Common Development Use Cases

Debugging JWTs: A JWT's Header and Payload are Base64Url-encoded. Decode them directly to inspect the fields inside — essential for diagnosing token issues.

HTTP Basic Auth: The value in Authorization: Basic xxxxxx is the Base64 encoding of username:password. Decode it to see the plaintext — which is also why Basic Auth must always be used over HTTPS.

API response inspection: Some API fields return Base64-encoded values. Decoding reveals the actual content.

👉 Encode or decode your Base64 now: https://toolshu.com/en/base64

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