Free Data URI Generator

There is no official limit in the specification. Browsers typically handle at least 2MB, but performance degrades with large URIs. Best practice is to keep Data URIs under 10KB for optimal performance.

You can, but should not. Base64 increases size by 33%, and large Data URIs hurt page load times. They cannot be cached separately from the document. Use external files for images over 10KB.

No, Data URIs are not cached separately. They are cached as part of the containing document (HTML, CSS, JS). This is why they are inefficient for large or frequently-used assets.

Base64 encoding makes binary data safe for inclusion in text-based formats like HTML and CSS. Without encoding, binary data could contain invalid characters. Plain text can use URL encoding instead.

Yes, Data URIs work perfectly in CSS background-image, list-style-image, and @font-face src. This is one of their most common uses - embedding small icons directly in stylesheets.

Read the image file as binary, Base64-encode it, and prepend the data URI prefix with the correct MIME type (like image/png or image/jpeg). This tool automates the process for you.