What is the difference between Base32 and Base64?

Base32 uses a 32-character alphabet (A-Z, 2-7) with 5 bits per character, making it case-insensitive and avoiding visually ambiguous characters. Base64 uses a 64-character alphabet (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, /) with 6 bits per character, resulting in a ~33% size increase over raw bytes compared to Base32's ~60% increase.

What characters are valid in Base32 input?

RFC 4648 Base32 uses uppercase A-Z and digits 2-7. Lowercase letters are accepted and converted automatically. Spaces and padding characters (=) are ignored.

What is URL-safe Base64?

URL-safe Base64 replaces + with - and / with _ and omits the = padding characters. This makes the output safe to embed in URLs and filenames without percent-encoding.

Do Base32 and Base64 always represent the same number of bytes?

Yes — this tool decodes the Base32 input to its original raw bytes and then re-encodes those exact bytes as Base64. The underlying data is identical; only the textual representation changes.

Why does the Base64 output sometimes end with == or =?

Base64 pads output to a multiple of 4 characters. One = means one padding byte, two == means two padding bytes. This depends on whether the byte count is divisible by 3.

Can I decode Google Authenticator secrets with this tool?

Yes. Google Authenticator stores secrets as RFC 4648 Base32. Paste the secret here to get the Base64 form, which some libraries require.

Base32 to Base64 Converter

Name: Base32 to Base64 Converter
Availability: InStock
Author: Nham Vu

Paste a Base32 string (A-Z and 2-7) and instantly get the equivalent Base64-encoded output.

Base32 Input

Examples:

Base64 Output

Enter a Base32 string and click Convert

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Summary

Paste a Base32 string (A-Z and 2-7) and instantly get the equivalent Base64-encoded output.

How it works

Enter or paste a Base32 string (letters A-Z and digits 2-7) into the input field.
Padding characters (=) and whitespace are stripped; the input is uppercased automatically.
Each Base32 character maps to 5 bits using the RFC 4648 alphabet, building a full bit string.
The bit string is packed into bytes (8 bits each); any trailing partial byte is discarded.
The resulting bytes are re-encoded as standard Base64 (with = padding) and URL-safe Base64 (- / _ alphabet, no padding).
Copy either output with one click.

Use cases

Convert TOTP/2FA secret keys from Base32 to Base64 for use in different libraries.
Re-encode binary tokens that arrived in Base32 format into Base64 for JWT or HTTP headers.
Debug encoding pipelines that mix Base32 and Base64 representations.
Verify that two encoded strings represent the same underlying bytes.
Learn the difference between Base32 and Base64 character-set trade-offs.
Quickly translate key material between encoding schemes during development.

Frequently Asked Questions

Last updated: 2026-06-10 · Reviewed by Nham Vu