Convert any text into binary code — the 1s and 0s a computer actually stores — and decode binary back into readable text. Every byte is also shown in hexadecimal and decimal so you can see the same data in all three forms.
2 bytes — every view above shows the same UTF-8 bytes in a different number base.
📌 Text is encoded as UTF-8: plain English letters take 1 byte (8 bits) each, while accented letters and emoji take 2–4 bytes. Decoding tolerates missing spaces when the length is a clean multiple of 8.
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How letters become bytes
Computers only store numbers, so every character you type is assigned a code. The ASCII standard (1963) numbered English letters, digits, and punctuation from 0 to 127, and UTF-8 — the encoding used by essentially the whole web today — keeps those same codes for English text. A capital A is code 65, and 65 written as an 8-bit binary byte is 01000001:
"A" → code 65 → 01000001 (binary) = 41 (hex)
"B" → code 66 → 01000010 (binary) = 42 (hex)
"a" → code 97 → 01100001 (binary) = 61 (hex)
Lowercase letters sit exactly 32 codes above their uppercase versions, which in binary means flipping a single bit — compare A and a above. Characters outside basic English, like é or an emoji, use 2–4 bytes each under UTF-8, and the translator handles those automatically.
Note that this tool converts text character by character. If you want to convert a number as a value — say 255 into 11111111 — use the number base converter instead.
Binary, hex, and decimal — three views of one byte
The secondary rows under the result show the very same bytes in hexadecimal and decimal. Programmers prefer hex because one hex digit represents exactly four bits, so a byte is always two hex characters: 01001000 becomes 48. Decimal is what the byte "is" as an ordinary number — 72 in that case. Nothing changes about the data itself; only the notation does.
Frequently asked questions
It spells "Hi". The first byte 01001000 is 72 in decimal, which is the ASCII/UTF-8 code for capital H, and 01101001 is 105, the code for lowercase i. Paste any string of 1s and 0s into the translator above and it decodes the message the same way, byte by byte.
Computers group bits into bytes of 8, and the ASCII standard assigned every English letter, digit, and symbol a number from 0 to 127 that fits in one byte. UTF-8, the encoding the web uses today, keeps those exact same one-byte codes for English text, which is why "A" is always 01000001. Eight bits also give 256 possible values — a convenient power of two for hardware.
They take more than one byte. UTF-8 is a variable-length encoding: plain English characters use 1 byte, most European accented letters like é use 2 bytes, and emoji use 4 bytes. Try typing an emoji into the translator — you will see four 8-bit groups appear for a single symbol, and the byte counter confirms it.
No — this tool converts text: each character becomes its UTF-8 byte code. Converting the number 42 as a value gives 101010, but converting the text "42" gives two bytes, 00110100 00110010, because the characters 4 and 2 have their own codes. For converting numbers between binary, decimal, and hex, use the number base converter linked on this page.
Spaces make it unambiguous, but they are optional here: if you paste an unbroken run of 1s and 0s whose length is an exact multiple of 8, the translator slices it into 8-bit bytes automatically. If the length does not divide evenly by 8, add spaces so the tool knows where each byte ends.