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

function containsEncodedComponents(x) {
  // ie ?,=,&,/ etc
  return decodeURI(x) !== decodeURIComponent(x);
}

console.log(containsEncodedComponents("%3Fx%3Dtest")); // ?x=test
// Expected output: true

console.log(containsEncodedComponents("%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BB%D1%8B")); // шеллы
// Expected output: false

Syntax

js
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

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

Catching errors

js
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.

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

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

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript® 2025 Language Specification
# sec-decodeuricomponent-encodeduricomponent

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobileserver
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
Deno
Node.js
decodeURIComponent

Legend

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Full support
Full support

See also