How to use the binary translator
Type text into the left box to see it in binary, or paste binary into the right box to read it as text. Each character becomes one or more groups of eight bits, called bytes. Untick Space between bytes if you need one long string of digits.
When reading binary, you can separate the bytes with spaces, commas or new lines, or leave them all joined together as long as the total length is a multiple of eight.
How text becomes binary
Computers store every letter as a number, and every number in binary, using only the digits 0 and 1. Capital H is number 72, which is 01001000 in binary, and lower-case i is 105, or 01101001. So Hi is 01001000 01101001.
This translator uses UTF-8, the standard used by almost every website. Plain English letters, digits and punctuation take one byte each. Accented letters such as é take two bytes, and emoji take four, which is why a single emoji can turn into 32 digits.
Reading binary by hand
Each of the eight positions in a byte has a value: from the left they are 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1. Add up the values where there is a 1. For 01000001 that is 64 + 1 = 65, which is a capital A. Capital letters run from 65 to 90 and small letters from 97 to 122, so with the ASCII table you can decode any message by hand.
Questions and answers
What is 01001000 01101001 in binary?
Hi. 01001000 is 72, a capital H, and 01101001 is 105, a small i.
Why does my binary turn into strange symbols?
The digits may not be grouped into whole bytes, or a byte may be missing. Check that the total number of digits is a multiple of eight.
Can it translate emoji?
Yes. Emoji are stored as four bytes in UTF-8, so each one becomes 32 binary digits.
What is a bit and a byte?
A bit is a single 0 or 1. A byte is a group of eight bits, which can store a number from 0 to 255.