Binary / ASCII Converter

Convert text to space-separated binary bytes, or decode binary back to text, in your browser.

How it works

Text is first encoded as UTF-8 bytes, and each byte is written out as 8 binary digits. Decoding reverses this: each space-separated group of bits is read back as one byte, and the bytes are decoded as UTF-8 text.

Why UTF-8 instead of plain ASCII

Classic 7-bit ASCII only covers 128 characters — enough for basic English text, but not accented letters, symbols, or emoji. UTF-8 extends this by using more than one byte for those characters while staying identical to ASCII for the characters it already covered.

Common uses

Understanding how a specific character is actually stored in memory, or working through a computer science exercise on binary and character encoding by hand.

Frequently asked questions

Why are there sometimes more than 8 bits per character?

Text is encoded as UTF-8 first, so any character outside the basic ASCII range takes up two to four bytes — each shown as its own 8-bit group — rather than always being exactly one.

What format is expected when decoding?

Groups of up to 8 binary digits (0 and 1 only), separated by spaces, where each group is one byte.