This Python script tries to decode bytes to plain text using some common binary-to-ascii encodings like Base64, percent encoding, HTML entity encoding, and a few others. Its inspiration was a StackExchange post by Nicolas Raoul.

Use it like this on a file:

python3 try_decodings.py temp.txt

Use it like this in a pipe:

$ printf 'example text' | base64 | try_decodings.py
Base64  : example text
Ascii85 : b'\xb3d\xdb\xf7\xac^\xdb\xf5g@\x05\xef'
Base85  : b'n ,\xbfg\x1a.\xc1"=\x9a\x86'
ROT13   : MKuuoKOfMFO0MKu0
Failed to decode: Base32, Base16, Uuencoding, BinHex
Output same as input: MIME quoted-printable, Percent-encoding, HTML

For a demonstration, run the self-test:

$ python3 try_decodings.py --selftest | less

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.