decodeURIComponent()

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The decodeURIComponent() function decodes a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) component previously created by encodeURIComponent() or by a similar routine.

Try it

Syntax

decodeURIComponent(encodedURI)

Parameters

encodedURI: An encoded component of a Uniform Resource Identifier.

Return value

A new string representing the decoded version of the given encoded Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) component.

Exceptions

URIError: Thrown if encodedURI contains a % not followed by two hexadecimal digits, or if the escape sequence does not encode a valid UTF-8 character.

Description

decodeURIComponent() is a function property of the global object.

decodeURIComponent() uses the same decoding algorithm as described in decodeURI(). It decodes all escape sequences, including those that are not created by encodeURIComponent, like -.!~*'().

Examples

Decoding a Cyrillic URL component

decodeURIComponent("JavaScript_%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BB%D1%8B");
// "JavaScript_шеллы"

Catching errors

try {
  const a = decodeURIComponent("%E0%A4%A");
} catch (e) {
  console.error(e);
}

// URIError: malformed URI sequence

Decoding query parameters from a URL

decodeURIComponent() cannot be used directly to parse query parameters from a URL. It needs a bit of preparation.

function decodeQueryParam(p) {
  return decodeURIComponent(p.replace(/\+/g, " "));
}

decodeQueryParam("search+query%20%28correct%29");
// 'search query (correct)'

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript Language Specification # sec-decodeuricomponent-encodeduricomponent

Browser compatibility

	Desktop					Mobile						Server
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Opera	Safari	Chrome Android	Firefox for Android	Opera Android	Safari on IOS	Samsung Internet	WebView Android	Deno	Node.js
`decodeURIComponent`	1	12	1	7	1.1	18	4	10.1	1	1.0	4.4	1.0	0.10.0