What is Mojibake? The Complete Guide to Garbled Text

Have you ever opened a file or email and seen nonsense characters like ÄãºÃ instead of 你好? Or weird symbols like ’ instead of a simple apostrophe '? This frustrating problem is called mojibake (文字化け), and it's caused by character encoding mismatches.

What is Mojibake? 🤔

Mojibake (文字化け) is a Japanese term meaning "character transformation" or "garbled text." It refers to text that displays as random, unreadable characters because it was decoded using the wrong character encoding.

Think of character encoding as a "dictionary" that tells computers how to convert binary data (0s and 1s) into readable text. When you use the wrong dictionary to decode text, you get mojibake.

Why Does Mojibake Happen? 🔍

1. Different Systems Use Different Encodings

Different countries and operating systems historically used different character encodings:

• China: GBK / GB18030 for Simplified Chinese
• Taiwan/Hong Kong: Big5 for Traditional Chinese
• Japan: Shift-JIS or EUC-JP
• Korea: EUC-KR
• Western Europe: ISO-8859-1 or Windows-1252
• Modern systems: UTF-8 (universal)

2. Missing Encoding Information

When you save a file, the encoding information might not be stored. When someone else opens it, their software guesses the encoding—and often guesses wrong.

3. Email and Database Issues

Legacy email systems and databases often default to ASCII or Latin-1, which can't handle non-Latin scripts. This causes mojibake when Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic text is stored or transmitted.

Common Mojibake Examples 📝

How to Fix Mojibake 🛠️

Method 1: Use an Online Fixer (Easiest)

The fastest way to fix garbled text is to use an automatic decoder that tries different encodings until it finds the right one.

Method 2: Manually Re-encode in Your Text Editor

In editors like Notepad++, VS Code, or Sublime Text:

1. Open the garbled file
2. Look for "Encoding" or "Character Encoding" in the menu
3. Try changing it to UTF-8, GBK, Big5, or Shift-JIS
4. See which one makes the text readable

Method 3: Fix Database Encoding

If your database shows mojibake:

• Check your database's character set (should be utf8mb4 for MySQL)
• Check your table/column encoding
• Update your connection string to use UTF-8

How to Prevent Mojibake 🛡️

1. Always Use UTF-8

UTF-8 is the universal character encoding that supports all languages. Always save files, configure databases, and set web pages to use UTF-8.

2. Declare Encoding Explicitly

In HTML files:

In HTTP headers:

3. Be Careful When Copying Text

When copying text from PDFs, emails, or legacy systems, always verify it displays correctly before saving or sending.

4. Use Modern Tools

Modern software (like VS Code, modern browsers, and recent versions of MySQL) default to UTF-8, which prevents most mojibake issues.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can mojibake be reversed?

Yes! As long as the original bytes are preserved, you can decode them with the correct encoding to recover the original text. Use our Garbled Text Fixer to do this automatically.

Is mojibake permanent data loss?

No. Mojibake is just a display issue—the data itself is usually fine. The problem is that it's being displayed with the wrong encoding. Once you find the right encoding, the text becomes readable again.

Why do I see ��� (replacement characters)?

The � symbol (Unicode replacement character U+FFFD) appears when your system encounters bytes that can't be decoded in the current encoding. This often means permanent data loss because the original bytes were replaced during saving.

Conclusion

Mojibake is a common but fixable problem caused by character encoding mismatches. By understanding how encodings work and always using UTF-8 where possible, you can prevent most issues. When you do encounter garbled text, tools like our free mojibake decoder can fix it in seconds.

Related Articles

• How to Fix Character Encoding Issues