Image to Base64 Converter – Free, Online, Private

File in, alphabet out

The picker reads the file with FileReader as a data URL. The page then strips the prefix and the comma, and prints the alphabet. That is the form most JSON APIs want in a string field. A CSS background wants the prefix put back: url(data:image/png;base64,THE_TEXT). The sample button loads a known PNG so you can see the shape without picking a file. The sample's output matches the Base64-to-image page, which is the inverse. The original filename is not included. Base64 grows the payload by about a third, which is why embedding a large photo in a stylesheet is usually a mistake.

Privacy

The file is not posted anywhere. That is the reason to use a local page for a screenshot that contains a customer name or an unreleased screen. The tab holds the bytes until you navigate away. Clear the box on a shared computer. The picker accepts whatever the browser will read; it does not recompress. Use the image compressor when you need a smaller file first, then encode the result. This page does not resize, strip EXIF, or change format. EXIF stays inside the file and therefore inside the Base64, including GPS if the camera wrote it. Strip metadata before you encode if the recipient should not see it.

Worked example

The sample data URL is a 1×1 PNG. After the comma, the alphabet is the same string the other page uses as its sample. Decoding that alphabet paints the pixel again. A JPEG you pick will start with /9j/ because those characters are the Base64 form of the FF D8 FF signature. A PNG starts with iVBORw0KGgo. If the output does not start with one of those, you did not pick a JPEG or a PNG. The page will still print the alphabet.

Limits

There is no drag-and-drop batch and no zip. One file at a time. A multi-hundred-megabyte TIFF may exhaust the tab; the browser, not a server, is the limit. SVG text is accepted if you pick the file. The output is standard Base64 with + and /, not the URL-safe alphabet. The text-to-Base64 page is for UTF-8 strings. This page is for bytes that are an image.

Frequently asked questions