Why does one emoji become two \u escapes?

JavaScript, Java and JSON strings are UTF-16, so characters above U+FFFF (like 😀) need two surrogate units, written \ud83d\ude00. If your target supports ES6, choose the \u{1f600} format to write the full code point.

Do I need to tell it which format to decode?

No. It recognizes \uXXXX, \u{…}, HTML entities, U+ code points, \xHH / %XX byte runs and space-separated hex bytes automatically, leaves normal text untouched, and handles mixed formats together.

What is the difference between Unicode and UTF-8?

Unicode assigns every character a code point ("你" is U+4F60); UTF-8 is one way of storing code points as bytes, where "你" takes three bytes E4 BD A0. The details table shows code point, UTF-8 and UTF-16 side by side.

No. Everything runs locally in your browser with no network upload and is discarded when you close the page, so it is safe for internal or sensitive data.

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🈶Unicode Converter - Text to \u Escape, UTF-8 Hex & Code Points

Code, logs and JSON are full of sequences like \u4f60\u597d, 你 or E4 BD A0. This tool turns any text into JavaScript/Java \uXXXX escapes, ES6 \u{…}, HTML numeric entities, UTF-8 hex bytes, URL percent-encoding or a U+ code point list, and decodes the other way by auto-detecting whatever formats are mixed into the input. Characters beyond the BMP, such as emoji, are handled correctly as surrogate pairs or full code points. A details table lists each character's code point, decimal value, UTF-8 and UTF-16 units, which is handy for debugging mojibake.

Free · No sign-up · Runs in your browserLast updated: 2026-10-26

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How to use Unicode Converter

1Choose Text → Escapes or Escapes → Text
2When encoding, pick the format (\uXXXX, &#x…;, UTF-8 …) and optionally convert only non-ASCII characters
3Read the result and the per-character table, and copy

FAQ

Why does one emoji become two \u escapes?: JavaScript, Java and JSON strings are UTF-16, so characters above U+FFFF (like 😀) need two surrogate units, written \ud83d\ude00. If your target supports ES6, choose the \u{1f600} format to write the full code point.
Do I need to tell it which format to decode?: No. It recognizes \uXXXX, \u{…}, HTML entities, U+ code points, \xHH / %XX byte runs and space-separated hex bytes automatically, leaves normal text untouched, and handles mixed formats together.
What is the difference between Unicode and UTF-8?: Unicode assigns every character a code point ("你" is U+4F60); UTF-8 is one way of storing code points as bytes, where "你" takes three bytes E4 BD A0. The details table shows code point, UTF-8 and UTF-16 side by side.
Is my data uploaded?: No. Everything runs locally in your browser with no network upload and is discarded when you close the page, so it is safe for internal or sensitive data.