How to encode base64 via command line in macOS/OS X?

Question

Is there a terminal command in macOS/OS X which will base64 encode a file or stdin?

Be aware that although the base64-encoding syntax is consistent from one OS to another, the base64-decoding syntax is either base64 -d or base64 -D depending on your operating system. OSX uses -D. — Chris Johnson, Nov 30 '12 at 22:06
@ChrisJohnson If used in concert with openssl the flag for decoding is -d on OS X (10.10 Yosemite). — ᴠɪɴᴄᴇɴᴛ, Jun 10 '15 at 12:11
Simply echo -n password | base64 in your MacOS Terminal; and echo -n password | base64 -D to decode. — Bugs Bunny, May 30 '23 at 19:29

score 427 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 22 '15 at 04:02

427

openssl can do this for you, and it's all installed with OS X by default; no need to install darwinports.

$ openssl base64 -in <infile> -out <outfile>

Without the -in option reads from stdin

edited Jan 22 '15 at 04:02

Giacomo1968

55,001

answered Mar 17 '10 at 00:25

Steve Folly

7,193

114

Use openssl base64 < path/to/file.png | tr -d '\n' | pbcopy or cat path/to/file.png | openssl base64 | tr -d '\n' | pbcopy to skip writing to a file and just copy the base64-encoded output to the clipboard without the line breaks. – Mathias Bynens Apr 12 '11 at 13:07
7

And use a -d flag to decode. – kenny Dec 11 '13 at 22:26
17

In mac, To base64 encode a string: openssl base64 -e <<< ram and to decode: openssl base64 -d <<< cmFtCg== – Ram Patra Nov 13 '14 at 10:52
is there an option to output the base64-encoded string in the terminal? – Zerium Apr 08 '15 at 00:19
1

never mind, I found it: openssl base64 < path/to/file should work fine. – Zerium Apr 08 '15 at 00:19
14

@mathias if you want no newlines openssl base64 [-e] -A does that. + @kenny on decode if input does not have newline every 76 chars at most, including the no-newlines case I just stated, you need -d -A or you will get missing or corrupted data with no error message (although there is a pending bug report which may result in a fix to that). – dave_thompson_085 May 27 '15 at 14:54
2

@Ram, openssl base64 -e <<< ram actually encodes 4 bytes, including a trailing line feed; see hexdump <<< ram. – Arjan Jun 03 '15 at 20:39
I had to use -D instead of the lowercase -d – kendepelchin Aug 09 '17 at 14:06
1

Taking @MathiasBynens even further: pbpaste | openssl base64 -A | pbcopy to automagically transform what's on your clipboard into base64. (added -A) – evan.bovie Feb 01 '19 at 23:03

score 219 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:19

219

OpenSSL can be used more succinctly:

echo -n 'input' | openssl base64

echo -n -> must be used, or encoding will be done including new line character.

Or:

openssl base64 <ENTER> [type input] <CTRL+D>

edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:19

Giacomo1968

55,001

answered Apr 21 '10 at 06:12

Tempire

2,299

20

The "echo" solution adds a LF (line feed) char to the end of the input string, though. Better use: echo -n 'input' – SuperTempel Jul 17 '12 at 15:17
15

And even a bit more succinct openssl base64 <<< input – Garrett Fogerlie Jun 06 '13 at 16:57
6

Or just use base64 without openssl. Either way, I need to press Ctrl+D twice. And beware, @Garret: in Bash, with or without openssl, openssl base64 <<< superuser and openssl base64 <<< "superuser" erroneously yield c3VwZXJ1c2VyCg==, as the "here string" then still includes a line feed! (Apparently not only in Bash, but also in zsh, ksh and yash. See hexdump <<< superuser. The Base64 result should be c3VwZXJ1c2Vy.) – Arjan Jun 03 '15 at 20:37
@Arjan I'd hesitate to use the word "erroneously" - as you pointed out, the here-string includes a line feed, but for good reason - http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/20157/why-does-a-bash-here-string-add-a-trailing-newline-char . echo -n is preferred if you don't need the newline. It's certainly something to be aware of. – Steve Folly Jun 05 '15 at 07:33
@Steve, indeed, it's not openssl base64 nor Bash that are to blame. But it surely is not the expected outcome when encoding the word input, so I wanted to ensure the "erroneously" is seen by future readers ;-) – Arjan Jun 05 '15 at 07:51
3

You could use printf in place of echo -n – Jason S Sep 05 '16 at 06:08

score 102 · Answer 3 · edited May 25 '15 at 17:06

102

Try using:

base64 -i <in-file> -o <outfile>

It should be available by default on OS X.

edited May 25 '15 at 17:06

kenorb

25,417

answered Feb 27 '15 at 20:13

Derreck Dean

1,129

2

Add --decode to reverse the process from base64 to normal. – luckydonald Nov 02 '18 at 14:05
3

This is better for encoding for SVG because it creates one line. This is cleaner than the output from openssl base64. Thanks! – Shanimal Apr 18 '19 at 01:35
I didn't want to use files so you can do echo -n "something" | base64 – Mike Harrison Feb 03 '22 at 22:51

score 94 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:20

94

On macOS I always use:

echo -n "STRING" | base64

-n is to avoid a new line character on the end of the line.

edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:20

Giacomo1968

55,001

answered Aug 01 '17 at 05:33

patrickS

1,517

This also works on Windows if you're running Cmder. – craftworkgames May 27 '20 at 02:03
This works for me in mac – Ripudaman Singh Apr 05 '21 at 11:52

score 65 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 17 '16 at 02:48

65

base64 command is available by default on my OS X 10.9.4.

You can use base64 <<< string and base64 -D <<< string to encode and decode a string in the terminal, or base64 -in file and base64 -D -in file to encode and decode a file.

answered Mar 17 '16 at 02:48

WKPlus

759

Do you have an example? I get Invalid characer in input stream when using <<<...I have tried with ", ' and nothing around the string. – Jonas Sep 20 '16 at 11:46
@Jonas What shell are you in? You can use this in bash and zsh. – WKPlus Sep 21 '16 at 12:42
Ah, nevermind, it works! – Jonas Sep 22 '16 at 08:46
10

Please note base64 <<< cat is equivalent to echo cat|base64, not echo -n cat|base64. Basically the automatic linefeed will be added to the base64 encoded string, and that might not be what you want. – Bill Apr 12 '20 at 03:29

kenorb · Answer 6 · 2017-08-19T14:56:23.520

17

Since Python is provided with OS X by default, you can use it as below:

$ echo FOO | python -m base64
Rk9PCg==
$ echo Rk9PCg== | python -m base64 -d
FOO

Or install coreutils via Brew (brew install coreutils) which will provide base64 command:

$ echo FOO | base64
Rk9PCg==
$ echo Rk9PCg== | base64 -d
FOO

edited Aug 19 '17 at 14:56

answered May 25 '15 at 17:19

kenorb

25,417

score 8 · Answer 7 · edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:21

8

You can also pipe it right to the clipboard (at least on mac):

openssl base64 -in [filename] | pbcopy

edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:21

Giacomo1968

55,001

answered Jul 12 '16 at 15:39

Steve

517

1

golfing: base64 < [filename] | pbcopy – totels Aug 11 '16 at 19:57
Nice idea! xclip -sel clip would be the equivalent to pbcopy in X11. – Besworks May 20 '22 at 00:01

ccpizza · Answer 8 · 2024-04-05T08:15:47.830

Python

Python3 comes preinstalled on all modern macs and linuces nowadays. The base64 module in the standard library exposes a cli interface (see python3 -m base64 -h)

Encode

# encode /etc/hosts to hosts.b64 in the current folder
# passing -e is optional since it's the default operation
python3 -m base64 -e < /etc/hosts > hosts.b64
encode a literal string to stdout (❗️appends a new line char)
python3 -m base64 <<< 'nobody expects the spanish inq..'
OUT: bm9ib2R5IGV4cGVjdHMgdGhlIHNwYW5pc2ggaW5xLi4K

Decode

# decode hosts.b64 to hosts.txt
python3 -m base64 -d < hosts.b64 > hosts.txt

The python code in case you need to script it from python:

Encode a file:

base64data = open('myfile.jpg','rb').read().encode('base64')
open('myfile.txt','w').write(base64data)

Encode a byte string without including the trailing new line:

import binascii 
encoded = binascii.b2a_base64(b'nobody expects..', newline=False)
print(encoded)
# OUT: b'bm9ib2R5IGV4cGVjdHMuLg=='
alternative solution
import base64
encoded = base64.standard_b64encode(b'nobody expects..')
print(encoded)
OUT: b'bm9ib2R5IGV4cGVjdHMuLg=='

Decode a file:

data = open('myfile.b64').read().decode('base64')
open('myfile.jpg','wb').write(data)

OpenSSL

# encode to base64 (on OSX use `-output`)
openssl base64 -in myfile.jpg -output myfile.jpg.b64
encode to base64 (on Linux use -out)
openssl base64 -in myfile.jpg -out myfile.jpg.b64
decode from base64 (on OSX -output should be used)
openssl base64 -d -in myfile.jpg.b64 -output myfile.jpg
decode from base64 (on Linux -out should be used)
openssl base64 -d -in myfile.jpg.b64 -out myfile.jpg

Omitting the -out/-output... filename will print to stdout.

You can also pass the input data as a stream in a OS-agnostic way, e.g.

# encode /etc/hosts to hosts.b64
openssl base64 < /etc/hosts > hosts.b64
decode hosts64.b64 to hosts.txt
openssl base64 -d < hosts.b64 > hosts.txt
decode raw data to stdout (don't use with binary files)
openssl base64 -d < hosts.b64

Base64

Another out of the box utility commonly available on both mac and Lunux:

# encode to base64
base64 < myfile.jpg > myfile.jpg.b64
decode from base64 (OSX) (note the uppercase '-D', '-d' might also be accepted newer OS's)
base64 -D < myfile.jpg.b64 > myfile.jpg
decode from base64 (Linux) (note the lowercase 'd')
base64 -d < myfile.jpg.b64 > myfile.jpg

score 7 · Answer 9 · edited Mar 22 '24 at 20:36

In terms of speed, I would use OpenSSL followed by Perl, followed by uuencode. In terms of portability, I would use uuencode followed by Perl followed by openssl (If you care about reusing the code on as many other UNIX like stock platforms as possible). Be careful though because not all UNIX variants support the -m switch (If I recall correctly, AIX does, HP/UX does, Solaris doesn't).

$ time perl -MMIME::Base64 -e 'undef $/;while(<>){print encode_base64($_);}' \
> out.jpg 1>filename.b64
real    0m0.025s
$ time uuencode -m -o filename.b64 out.jpg filename_when_uudecoded.txt
real    0m0.051s
$  time openssl base64 -in out.jpg -out filename.b64 
real    0m0.017s

Use the -m switch to uuencode file_in.txt per base64 as specified by RFC1521 and write it to filename.b64 (with filename_when_uudecoded.txt as the default filename when decoded):

uuencode -m -o filename.b64 file_in.txt filename_when_uudecoded.txt

STDIN example:

cat file_in.txt | uuencode -m -o filename.b64 filename_when_uudecoded.txt

score 4 · Answer 10 · edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:38

4

In addition to Steve Folly's answer, when encoding in stdin mode, to avoid passing extra newlines, press CTRL+D twice to end input without any additional newlines.

The output will show right after the same line.

For example:

$ openssl base64 <kbd>Enter</kbd>
input<kbd>CTRL</kbd>+<kbd>D</kbd><kbd>CTRL</kbd>+<kbd>D</kbd>aW5wdXQ=

Alternatively, you could use printf:

$ printf 'input' | openssl base64
aW5wdXQ=

edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:38

Giacomo1968

55,001

answered Jul 27 '16 at 18:14

solimant

141

You meant to say encoding, right? – nethero Apr 19 '22 at 15:08
@nethero - yes, corrected. – solimant Apr 20 '22 at 16:05

score 3 · Answer 11 · edited Apr 04 '13 at 20:33

3

uuencode -m [-o output_file] [file] name

Where name is the name to display in the encoded header.

Example:

cat docbook-xsl.css | uuencode -m docbook-xsl.css

or

uuencode -m -o docbook-xsl.css.b64 docbook-xsl.css docbook-xsl.css

edited Apr 04 '13 at 20:33

Indrek

24,424

answered Apr 04 '13 at 20:12

user214207

31

uuencode is not the encoding as base64 – ccpizza Nov 17 '16 at 07:27

score 2 · Answer 12 · answered Jul 27 '14 at 05:16

2

For some reason, echo -n <data> | openssl base64 added a newline in the middle of my base64 data. I assume it was because my base64 data was really long.

Using echo -n <data> | base64 to encode and echo -n <base64-ed data> | base64 -D to decode worked fine.

answered Jul 27 '14 at 05:16

Heath Borders

1,290

nb: on my nix, i had to use -d
```
echo -n c29tZXVzZXI6c29tZXBhc3N3b3Jk | base64 -d
```
someuser:somepassword
– mlo55 Apr 14 '16 at 00:07

score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Mar 17 '10 at 04:24

There is Perl plus MIME::Base64:

perl -MMIME::Base64 -e 'undef $/;while(<>){print encode_base64($_);}'

This comes pre-installed. You can specify separate files on the command line (or supply the data on standard input); each file is separately encoded. You can also do:

perl -i.txt -MMIME::Base64 -e 'undef $/;while(<>){print encode_base64($_);}' file1

This backs up file1 to file1.txt, and writes the Base-64 encoded output over the original file.

score 1 · Answer 14 · edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:38

Cross-platform solutions

We compiled a list of cross-platform shell commands to encode a file as base64. The following commands take an input file (named deploy.key in examples) and convert it to base64 without any newline wrapping. The base64 output is printed to the terminal via stdout.

# For systems with openssl
openssl base64 -A -in=deploy.key
For systems with Python (2 or 3) installed
python -c "import base64; print(base64.standard_b64encode(open('deploy.key', 'rb').read()).decode())"
For Windows or Linux systems that have the GNU coreutils base64 command
base64 --wrap=1000000 deploy.key
For macOS systems
base64 --break=1000000 deploy.key

To redirect the output to a file, append > base64-encoded.txt (using a file name of your choosing).

These commands were prototyped as part of this pull request where we wanted cross-platform shell commands to base64 encode an SSH private key to remove newlines.

score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Jun 30 '22 at 17:17

There are many great answers already and mine does basically the same thing except the secret is never shown in the terminal.

I created these two aliases to encode a string from my clipboard and the encoded string is copied to my clipboard. The same applies to decoding:

alias decode='pbpaste | base64 --decode | pbcopy'
alias encode='pbpaste | base64 | pbcopy'

score 1 · Answer 16 · answered Mar 27 '15 at 13:09

1

A simple NodeJS version:

node -e "process.stdout.write(new Buffer(process.argv[1]).toString('base64'))" "Hello world!"

answered Mar 27 '15 at 13:09

mauvm

127

I don't think this is a better answer as openssl (and now base64) come with the OS. – Josh Mar 27 '15 at 15:01
At the risk of splitting hairs — and, I’m aware that this criticism applies to a couple of the other answers, as well — the question asked how to encode *a file* or *stdin*. If I’m not mistaken, your answer shows only how to encode a string. – G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica' Mar 27 '15 at 19:00

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Apr 18 '16 at 22:13

0

If you are base64 encoding a font file, you can do this:

base64 my-webfont.ttf > my-webfont.b64.ttf.txt

I use this on a Mac (10.10) all the time.

Note: There will be no linebreaks.

answered Apr 18 '16 at 22:13

ObiHill

119

score 0 · Answer 18 · edited Mar 22 '24 at 20:31

0

recode should do the trick for you

recode ../b64 < file.txt > file.b64

recode is available for OS X via MacPorts.

edited Mar 22 '24 at 20:31

Giacomo1968

55,001

answered Mar 17 '10 at 00:00

heavyd

63,745

1

There's nothing built in? – Josh Mar 17 '10 at 00:24
@Josh - there is - openssl – Steve Folly Mar 17 '10 at 00:25
1

MacPorts does not come with any OS X distribution. There are plenty of other options that do. For instance just base64 command. – Jason S Sep 05 '16 at 06:05

score 0 · Answer 19 · edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:39

0

On Mac, you can simply encode and decode the current clipboard contents to/from base64 with:

Encode to base64:
```
pbpaste | base64
```
Decode from base64:
```
pbpaste | base64 --decode
```

edited Mar 22 '24 at 18:39

Giacomo1968

55,001

answered Jun 22 '23 at 09:52

David Thomas

191

How to encode base64 via command line in macOS/OS X?

19 Answers19

Python

encode a literal string to stdout (❗️appends a new line char)

OUT: bm9ib2R5IGV4cGVjdHMgdGhlIHNwYW5pc2ggaW5xLi4K

alternative solution

OUT: b'bm9ib2R5IGV4cGVjdHMuLg=='

OpenSSL

encode to base64 (on Linux use `-out`)

decode from base64 (on OSX `-output` should be used)

decode from base64 (on Linux `-out` should be used)

decode hosts64.b64 to hosts.txt

decode raw data to stdout (don't use with binary files)

Base64

decode from base64 (OSX) (note the uppercase '-D', '-d' might also be accepted newer OS's)

decode from base64 (Linux) (note the lowercase 'd')

Cross-platform solutions

For systems with Python (2 or 3) installed

For Windows or Linux systems that have the GNU coreutils base64 command

For macOS systems

Linked

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