---
title: base64
description: "`base64Encode` and `base64Decode` let you easily decode content with a base64 encoding and vice versa through pipes."
categories: [functions]
menu:
  docs:
    parent: functions
keywords: []
relatedfuncs: []
signature: ["base64Decode INPUT", "base64Encode INPUT"]
---

```go-html-template
{{ "Hugo" | base64Encode }} → "SHVnbw=="
{{ "SHVnbw==" | base64Decode }} → "Hugo"
```

## `base64` with APIs

Using base64 to decode and encode becomes really powerful if we have to handle
responses from APIs.

```go-html-template
{{ $resp := getJSON "https://api.github.com/repos/gohugoio/hugo/readme" }}
{{ $resp.content | base64Decode | markdownify }}
```

The response of the GitHub API contains the base64-encoded version of the [README.md](https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/blob/master/README.md) in the Hugo repository. Now we can decode it and parse the Markdown. The final output will look similar to the rendered version on GitHub.