Text / Encoding
Text to Binary Converter (and Binary to Text)
Convert text to binary, hexadecimal, decimal, or octal bytes using UTF-8, so accented letters, Chinese, and emoji all work, and decode bytes back into text with invalid sequences reported.
Text to Binary Converter (and Binary to Text): Text is encoded as UTF-8, the encoding used by nearly every web page, and each byte is written in the chosen base: 8 binary digits, 2 hex digits, or 3 octal digits. Decoding accepts bytes separated by spaces or commas, or a continuous run of binary or hex, and rejects anything that is not valid UTF-8. Runs 100% locally in your browser with zero server file uploads.
- Category
- Text tools
- Runs
- In your browser
- Cost
- Free · no sign-up
- Availability
- Ready to use
Runs entirely in your browser
Output
01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00101100 00100000 11100100 10111000 10010110 11100111 10010101 10001100
Text is stored as bytes in UTF-8: plain English letters take one byte each (H is 01001000), accented letters two, and most Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters three. Decoding reads the bytes back and reports invalid sequences instead of guessing. For converting a single number between bases, use the number base converter.
Example
Hello, 世界 becomes 13 bytes: 5 for Hello, 1 each for the comma and space, and 3 each for 世 (E4 B8 96) and 界 (E7 95 8C). In binary, H is 01001000 and 世 is 11100100 10111000 10010110.
Bytes and characters
ASCII, from the 1960s, covers 128 characters in 7 bits; UTF-8 keeps those as single bytes and adds longer sequences for the rest of Unicode. To see the code point and bytes of each character, use the Unicode inspector.
How to use it
- Choose text to bytes or bytes to text.
- Pick binary, hexadecimal, decimal, or octal.
- Type the input and copy the result.
Privacy & limitations
Everything is converted in your browser.
Related tools
Frequently asked questions
What is Hello in binary?
01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111: one byte for each letter, as each is plain ASCII.
Why do some characters take several bytes?
UTF-8 uses one byte for ASCII, two for most accented and Greek or Cyrillic letters, three for most Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters, and four for emoji.
Can I convert one number to binary?
Use the number base converter for numbers; this tool converts the characters of text.
Free tool · runs in your browser · no account required