Free email text decoder
Decode the encoded text found in email source code – subjects and names like =?UTF-8?B?SGVsbG8=?=, base64 and quoted-printable – or encode text for use in an email.
This tool runs entirely in your browser – nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
Character set for base64 and quoted-printable (encoded words name their own)
Why is email text encoded?
Email headers were designed for plain ASCII text, so names and subjects containing accented letters, other alphabets or emoji are encoded using encoded words (RFC 2047): =?charset?B?…?= for base64 or =?charset?Q?…?= for a quoted-printable variant. Message bodies and attachments use base64 or quoted-printable content transfer encoding.
To see how a whole message is encoded, use our MIME structure viewer.
A free tool provided by Auth-Email
Auth-Email makes your Gmail, Outlook, or other OAuth 2.0 email account available to any IMAP, POP3, or SMTP email client — no app passwords or special configuration needed.
Frequently asked questions
What does =?UTF-8?B?…?= mean in an email subject?
It is an RFC 2047 encoded word, used to include non-ASCII characters in email headers. UTF-8 is the character set, B means base64 (Q means quoted-printable), and the text between the question marks is the encoded content.
What is quoted-printable encoding?
Quoted-printable represents special characters as = followed by two hexadecimal digits (for example, =C3=A9 is é in UTF-8), and wraps long lines with a trailing =.