Convert Images to Base64: Embedding Images in Code

You're building a single-file HTML landing page. You want it to be blazing fast, with zero external requests. But you need a logo.

Do you host the image externally? No. Do you ship a zip file? No.

You Base64 encode it.

Our Image to Base64 Converter takes your binary image file and turns it into a text string that you can paste directly into your HTML or CSS.

The Magic of data:image

A base64 image isn't a file; it's a string. It looks like this:

data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAU...

When the browser sees this, it renders the image immediately. No network request needed. (Want to know how the encoding works? Read our Base64 Guide).

When Should You Use This?

I see developers overuse this sometimes, so here's my rule of thumb:

✅ Use it for:

• Tiny Icons: Social media icons, UI arrows, bullets.
• Critical LCP Images: If your "Hero" image is small, embedding it can improve your Core Web Vitals by eliminating the network fetch.
• Email Templates: Email clients are notorious for blocking external images. Embedded images often fare better.
• Offline-First Apps: If you're building a dashboard that needs to work without internet, embedding assets is a solid strategy.

❌ Do NOT use it for:

• Large Photos: Base64 increases file size by ~33%. A 1MB photo becomes 1.33MB of text. This bloats your HTML and hurts parsing performance. (Use our [Image Resizer](/blog/resize-images-online) to shrink them first!).
• Gallery Images: If you have 50 images, lazy-loading external files is much better than a massive 50MB HTML file.

How to Use It in Code

In HTML (The src attribute)

<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgo..." alt="My Embedded Logo" />

In CSS (Background Images)

This is my favorite use case. Keeping UI assets inside your CSS file means one less HTTP request.

.search-icon {
  background-image: url('data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB...');
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
}

Pro Tip: SVG is Better

If you're encoding a vector icon, consider using SVG code directly instead of Base64. But for raster images (PNG, JPG), Base64 is the king of embedding.

Embed your images now