Binary Translator: Convert Text to Binary and Back

Example

Before

Hi!

After

01001000 01101001 00100001

How text becomes binary

Text is encoded as UTF-8, and each byte is written as a group of eight 0s and 1s. English letters take one byte each. Accented letters take two bytes and emoji take four, so they produce more groups.

Decoding

Paste binary with spaces between the bytes, or as one continuous string of 0s and 1s, which is split into groups of eight.

Reading binary by hand

Each byte is eight bits, worth 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, and 1 from left to right. Add the values of the 1s to get the number: 01001000 is 64 + 8 = 72, which is “H” in ASCII and UTF-8, and 01101001 is 64 + 32 + 8 + 1 = 105, “i”. Capital and lowercase letters differ by exactly one bit (worth 32), so 01000001 is “A” and 01100001 is “a”.

ASCII and UTF-8

ASCII, published in 1963, defined 128 characters: English letters, digits, punctuation, and control codes. UTF-8, designed in 1992, keeps those 128 characters exactly the same and uses two to four bytes for everything else, from é to Chinese characters and emoji. That backward compatibility is why UTF-8 is now used by the vast majority of web pages, and why plain English text gives the same binary in both.

Frequently asked questions

How do I write my name in binary?

Type it in the Text box and copy the binary. Each letter becomes one group of eight digits.

Why does an emoji produce four groups?

UTF-8 stores emoji in four bytes, and each byte is shown as one group of eight bits.

What if my binary doesn’t decode?

Check that each group has exactly eight digits and contains only 0s and 1s. A missing or extra digit shifts every character after it.