Why is one character sometimes more than 8 bits?

Text is encoded as UTF-8. ASCII characters are one byte (8 bits), but emoji, accented letters and many non-Latin characters use 2–4 bytes, so they become 16–32 bits.

What counts as valid binary to decode?

Any string of 0s and 1s whose total length is a multiple of 8. Spaces, line breaks and other characters are stripped first, so '01001000 01101001' and '0100100001101001' both decode the same.

Why do I get a length error?

Decoding needs whole bytes. If the number of 0s and 1s isn't a multiple of 8, a character is incomplete — check for a missing or extra bit.

No. Encoding and decoding happen entirely in your browser; nothing is sent to a server.

Text to Binary Converter

Convert

Turn any text into its binary representation and back again. Each character is encoded to UTF-8 bytes, and every byte becomes eight bits — so plain ASCII like 'A' is one byte (01000001) while an emoji or accented letter spans several. Choose how to separate the bytes (a space, nothing, or a custom character) for readable output. Switch to decode mode to paste binary back and recover the original text; spaces, newlines and other non-binary characters are ignored, so messy input still works. Handy for learning how characters are stored, puzzles and CTFs, or encoding short messages. Everything runs locally in your browser.

—

Input

Separator

Output

01001000 01101001

2 bytes

How to use

Pick a direction: Text → Binary or Binary → Text.
Type or paste your input. For encoding, choose how to separate the bytes.
Copy the result from the output box.

Frequently asked questions

Why is one character sometimes more than 8 bits?: Text is encoded as UTF-8. ASCII characters are one byte (8 bits), but emoji, accented letters and many non-Latin characters use 2–4 bytes, so they become 16–32 bits.
What counts as valid binary to decode?: Any string of 0s and 1s whose total length is a multiple of 8. Spaces, line breaks and other characters are stripped first, so '01001000 01101001' and '0100100001101001' both decode the same.
Why do I get a length error?: Decoding needs whole bytes. If the number of 0s and 1s isn't a multiple of 8, a character is incomplete — check for a missing or extra bit.
Is my text uploaded?: No. Encoding and decoding happen entirely in your browser; nothing is sent to a server.

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