Why does my file show mojibake (garbled text)?

It was saved in a different encoding than your viewer assumes. Try a different source encoding from the list — EUC-KR for older Korean files, Shift_JIS for Japanese, GB18030 for Simplified Chinese, Windows-1252 for Western European.

Is the file uploaded?

No. The file is read with the browser's TextDecoder API; nothing leaves your device.

How big a file can it handle?

There's no explicit limit, but very large files (hundreds of MB) may slow your browser tab. For huge logs use a dedicated text editor.

Can I convert from UTF-8 to a legacy encoding?

Not in the browser — TextEncoder only outputs UTF-8. This tool is one-way: legacy → UTF-8.

Text Encoding Converter

Drop a text file that was saved in a non-UTF-8 encoding and read it correctly in your browser. Supports 20+ legacy encodings — Korean (EUC-KR), Japanese (Shift_JIS / EUC-JP), Chinese (GB18030 / Big5), Cyrillic (Windows-1251), Western European (ISO-8859-1) and more. Download the result as a UTF-8 file.

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Source encodingDrop a text file hereor click to choose

How to use

Pick the source encoding (most text from older Korean systems is EUC-KR).
Drag and drop a text file or click to choose one.
Read the decoded text or switch encoding to compare.
Copy or download the result as UTF-8.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my file show mojibake (garbled text)?: It was saved in a different encoding than your viewer assumes. Try a different source encoding from the list — EUC-KR for older Korean files, Shift_JIS for Japanese, GB18030 for Simplified Chinese, Windows-1252 for Western European.
Is the file uploaded?: No. The file is read with the browser's TextDecoder API; nothing leaves your device.
How big a file can it handle?: There's no explicit limit, but very large files (hundreds of MB) may slow your browser tab. For huge logs use a dedicated text editor.
Can I convert from UTF-8 to a legacy encoding?: Not in the browser — TextEncoder only outputs UTF-8. This tool is one-way: legacy → UTF-8.

Guides on this topic

Why your text turns into strange characters A name comes out as Ã©, a Korean file becomes a wall of nonsense, or every accent is a black diamond. Text is stored as bytes and an encoding is only an agreement about what those bytes mean, so the damage tells you exactly which agreement was broken.

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