Options
None of this matters when decoding - line breaks, missing padding and both alphabets are handled automatically.
Plain text
0 characters · 0 bytes
Base64
0 characters
In short
Base64 is not encryption, it is a transcription: arbitrary bytes are mapped onto 64 printable characters so they survive channels that only carry text (email, JSON, URLs, data URIs).
| Size | Every 3 bytes become 4 characters - encoded data is roughly a third larger than the original. |
| Padding | The trailing = fill up the last group of four. Many systems (JWT, base64url) leave them out. |
| URL-safe | + and / get in the way inside URLs and file names. The base64url variant (RFC 4648 §5) replaces them with - and _. |
| Line breaks | MIME (RFC 2045) wraps after 76 characters. Line breaks are ignored when decoding. |
| Not a secret | Anyone can reverse Base64. Secrets need encryption, not encoding. |