BASE64(1)

📦
version 9.10 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 NAME 💖

base64 — the little tool that base64 encodes/decodes your data and yeets it straight to standard output 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

base64 [OPTION]... [FILE]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so bestie, here's the tea ☕ — base64 will base64 encode or decode whatever FILE you hand it (or standard input, she's flexible like that) and print the result to standard output. no cap.

Got no FILE? Or you passed FILE as -? Then she reads from standard input instead. iconic behavior tbh 💅

heads up queen: mandatory arguments for long options are mandatory for the short options too. like, if a long option needs a value, the short one does too. rules are rules 🎀
  • -d, --decode — decode that data, bestie 🔓
  • -i, --ignore-garbage — when you're decoding, just ignore the non-alphabet characters. she's not gonna fight you on it 🙈
  • -w, --wrap=COLS — wraps the encoded lines after COLS characters (default is 76). pass 0 to disable line wrapping completely ✨
  • --help — shows you this help and dips out 👋
  • --version — spits out version info and exits 👑

And now the actual ✨science✨ part: the data are encoded as described for the base64 alphabet in RFC 4648. When you're decoding, the input may contain newlines in addition to the bytes of the formal base64 alphabet. Use --ignore-garbage if you wanna attempt to recover from any other non-alphabet bytes chillin' in the encoded stream. lowkey a lifesaver 😭

🦋 AUTHOR 🦋

Written by Simon Josefsson. thank you king 👑✨

💀 REPORTING BUGS 💀

Found a bug? spill it, don't sit on it:

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

Packaged by Ubuntu (9.10-1ubuntu2). Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

fr fr read that license part, bestie — free to change and redistribute, but NO WARRANTY. know what you're signing up for 💅

and that's the whole vibe check 🎀 this was GNU coreutils 9.10, dated August 2026, page BASE64(1). go encode something cute, ily, bye!! 💖✨🦋

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