Binary Translator — Text to Binary & Binary to Text

What is a binary translator?

A binary translator converts text into binary code — the 0s and 1s computers use — and binary code back into readable text. Every letter, number, and symbol is stored as a number, and binary is the base-2 way of writing those numbers. This translator works in both directions, detects what you pasted automatically, and handles every language and emoji.

How to use the binary translator

1. Type or paste into the box. Auto-detect recognizes binary (only 0s and 1s) and decodes it to text; anything else is translated to binary.
2. Choose how to separate the bytes — spaces (the usual way), nothing, commas, new lines, dashes, or a 0b prefix in front of each byte. When decoding, both spaced and unspaced binary work.
3. Tap Swap to turn the result around, or Copy to save it.
4. Check the character-by-character table to see each letter’s code point, decimal, hex, and binary value.
5. Tap any byte or letter in the result to see how to read it: eight bit cards with their place values, the sum, and the letter it stands for.
6. Switch the format to decimal, hex, octal, or Base64 to write the same text another way, or to decode those formats back to text.
7. In the Send a secret message box, tap Send as a secret to get a link that opens your message as binary, with a “Decode it” button for whoever you send it to.

Binary to English (and every other language)

This translator uses UTF-8, the encoding used by almost every website and app. Plain English letters take one byte (8 bits) each, with the same numbers as the classic ASCII table (ASCII codes are 7 bits, so the byte starts with a 0). Accented letters, other alphabets, and emoji take two to four bytes — so they translate correctly instead of turning into question marks:

Want one number per character instead of bytes? Switch Encoding to Unicode code points: each character becomes its Unicode number in binary (é is 11101001 instead of the two UTF-8 bytes). That is handy for teaching, but files and websites store text as UTF-8 bytes. ASCII (7-bit) writes 7 digits per letter, and UTF-16 uses 16 digits per character, the way JavaScript, Java and Windows hold text in memory.

How binary code works

Binary is a base-2 number system: each digit (a bit) is 0 or 1, and the place values double from right to left — 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128. Eight bits make one byte, which can store 256 values (0–255). Text is turned into numbers by a standard such as ASCII or UTF-8, and those numbers are written in binary. The letter H is number 72, which is 01001000: 64 + 8 = 72.

How to read binary code, step by step

1. Split the binary into bytes — groups of 8 bits: 01001000 01101001.
2. Write the place values above each byte: 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.
3. Add up the place values wherever there’s a 1: 01001000 = 64 + 8 = 72, and 01101001 = 64 + 32 + 8 + 1 = 105.
4. Look the numbers up in the ASCII table (or the chart below): 72 = H and 105 = i — the message is “Hi”.

Want to get fast at it? Practice with the Binary Game.

Every letter, digit and symbol in binary

Every uppercase and lowercase letter, digit, and common punctuation mark in binary. These are the ASCII codes, which need 7 bits, written as 8-bit bytes with a leading 0, the way UTF-8 stores them. Uppercase letters start at 65 (A = 01000001) and lowercase letters are exactly 32 higher (a = 01100001) — only the third bit changes.

What does this binary mean?

These are the binary strings people paste most often. Each one is 8 digits per letter, decoded with UTF-8. Tap “Open” to load one into the translator and read it byte by byte.

So 01001000 01101001 means Hi: 01001000 is 72, the letter H, and 01101001 is 105, a lowercase i.

Why does my binary come out as gibberish?

Almost always it is one of these, and the translator now tells you which:

• A missing or extra digit. Every letter is 8 digits. A group of 7 or 9 digits shifts the meaning, or every letter after it if there are no spaces. The tool names the group that is the wrong length.
• 7 bits instead of 8. Some sites write ASCII with 7 digits per letter (1001000 for H). That is fine: the tool reads 7-bit groups too, with or without spaces.
• Spaces in the wrong places. Binary split into groups of 4 (0100 1000) or 16 is still readable: the tool reads the bits 8 at a time, or splits long groups into bytes.
• Code points instead of bytes. Binary made from Unicode code points (one long group per character) decodes to the wrong letters as UTF-8. Switch Encoding to Unicode code points.
• Stray characters. A letter O instead of a zero, a 2, quotes, or a word pasted along with the code. The tool points at it and offers to remove it (or to read the O as 0) with one tap.

Common words and phrases in binary

Popular for gifts, cards, jewelry, and secret messages — here’s how they look in binary:

More words, names and holiday messages in binary

How to write your name in binary

1. Type your name in the box above. Capital and small letters have different codes, so type it the way you want it.
2. Each letter becomes one byte. For Emma: E = 01000101, m = 01101101, m = 01101101, a = 01100001.
3. For a bracelet or a cross-stitch, use one color for 0 and another for 1: 8 beads per letter, 32 beads for Emma. Leave a gap or a spacer bead between letters so the bytes stay readable.

Digits as characters vs. numbers

Typing the digit 2 into a text translator gives the character “2”, which is ASCII code 50: 00110010. The number 2 in binary is just 10. Both are correct; they answer different questions.

For numbers, use the Binary Converter, which also shows the working.

Other formats: decimal, hex, octal and Base64

Binary is one way to write the bytes of a text. The format switch writes the same bytes in other bases, and decodes them back. Here is Hi! in each one:

Hex is the shortest readable form, which is why programmers use it (Hex to Text has more on it). Base64 isn’t a number system for people: it packs every 3 bytes into 4 characters so binary data can travel through email and web addresses.

Binary text vs. binary numbers

“Binary” can mean two different things. Translating text gives one byte per character (as above). Converting a number is base conversion: the number 42 is simply 101010 — use the Binary Converter for decimal, hex, and octal, and the Binary Calculator to add, subtract, multiply, and divide binary numbers.

A short history of binary code

• 1703: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz describes base-2 arithmetic, with only 0 and 1, in Explication de l’Arithmétique Binaire.
• 1854: George Boole publishes An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, an algebra of true and false that became Boolean logic.
• 1937: Claude Shannon’s master’s thesis at MIT shows that switching circuits can carry out Boolean logic, the idea every digital computer is built on.
• 1947–1948: John Tukey shortens “binary digit” to bit, and Shannon’s 1948 paper on information theory makes the word standard.
• 1963: the first ASCII standard gives the capital letters, digits and punctuation marks a 7-bit number (lowercase letters were added in 1967).
• 1992: Ken Thompson and Rob Pike design UTF-8, which keeps ASCII’s codes and adds every other script and emoji in two to four bytes. Today it is the encoding of almost every web page.

Related tools

Also try the Hex to Text converter, the Morse Code Translator, and the ASCII Art Generator.

Is anything uploaded?

No. The binary translator runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is uploaded or stored, and it works offline.