About Base64 Decode

Base64 decoding is the process of converting Base64-encoded data back into its original binary form. It is the reverse operation of Base64 encoding.

To decode Base64-encoded data:

• Take the Base64-encoded text and divide it into groups of four characters.
• Map each character in the group to its corresponding 6-bit value based on the Base64 alphabet.
• Combine the resulting four 6-bit values into a group of three bytes (24 bits) of binary data.
• Repeat this process for each group of four characters in the Base64-encoded text.
• If the length of the Base64-encoded text is not a multiple of four, padding characters ('=') may be present. These padding characters are ignored during decoding.

The resulting binary data is the decoded form of the Base64-encoded text.

It's worth noting that Base64 decoding will always produce binary data, even if the original Base64 encoding was used to encode text. Therefore, if the original data was text, decoding the Base64-encoded data will yield the original text content.

Base64 decoding is widely used in various applications, such as decoding binary attachments from emails, parsing data transmitted over text-based protocols like HTTP, extracting binary data from XML or JSON, and more.