Who Created Base64 and Is It Still Used?

Published on 2026-05-20

Base64 is everywhere. It’s in your emails, your web tokens, and embedded in the source code of countless websites. Yet, for something so fundamental to modern digital communication, its origins are rarely discussed. Who sat down and decided that binary data needed to be translated into this specific 64-character alphabet? Let’s take a trip back to the early days of the internet to uncover who created base64 and why it was born.

Key Takeaways

• Base64 was not created by a single person, but evolved as a standard through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
• Its primary origins are tied to the development of the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) protocol in the early 1990s.
• Nathaniel Borenstein and Ned Freed are the key figures behind MIME and, by extension, the formalization of Base64.
• Despite its age, Base64 is still heavily used today across web APIs, email systems, and cryptography.

The Problem: The Text-Only Internet

To understand why Base64 was created, we have to look at the state of email in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The protocols governing email routing (like SMTP) were strictly designed for 7-bit US-ASCII text.

This meant you could send basic English messages, but that was it. If you tried to attach an image, an executable file, or even text with special characters (like accented letters), the email servers would often mangle the data, stripping the 8th bit or misinterpreting control characters. The internet needed a way to safely transport arbitrary binary data across a network built exclusively for simple text.

Who Created Base64? The Architects of MIME

There isn't a single "inventor" who patented Base64 in a garage. Instead, the encoding scheme was formalized as a solution to the email problem by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

The concept of encoding binary data into printable text existed earlier (with schemes like uuencode). However, the specific 64-character table and algorithm we know as Base64 today was formally defined in RFC 1421 (Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail) in 1993, and then famously implemented in RFC 1521 (MIME) later that same year.

The driving forces behind MIME were Nathaniel Borenstein and Ned Freed. Borenstein, who famously sent the first email attachment (a photo of a barbershop quartet), recognized that for email to evolve, it needed a reliable binary-to-text encoding mechanism. While they drew upon previous encoding concepts, Borenstein and Freed's work on the MIME standard cemented Base64 as the universal solution.

Therefore, when asking who created base64, the most accurate answer is that it was standardized by the IETF, heavily championed by the creators of MIME, Nathaniel Borenstein and Ned Freed.

Why the Number 64?

The creators needed an alphabet that was universally safe across all computing systems. EBCDIC mainframes, ASCII Unix boxes, and early PCs all handled text slightly differently. They found that by limiting the alphabet to uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and two symbols (+ and /), they hit exactly 64 characters. This was the maximum number of characters they could guarantee would pass through every known system without being altered or causing errors.

Is Base64 Still Used Today?

Given that it was designed to fix an email problem in the early 90s, you might assume Base64 is a relic of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Base64 is arguably more relevant today than when it was created. Here is where it is actively used:

1. Email (MIME): It is still the standard way attachments are encoded in your daily emails.
2. Web Development: Inline images and fonts in CSS/HTML are often Base64 encoded (Data URIs) to reduce HTTP requests.
3. Modern APIs: JSON Web Tokens (JWTs), which handle authentication for millions of modern apps, are essentially three Base64 encoded strings joined together.
4. Cryptography: Storing encrypted keys (like SSH keys or TLS certificates) safely in text files relies entirely on Base64 (PEM format).

Conclusion

While we can trace the question of who created base64 back to the pioneering efforts of early IETF members like Borenstein and Freed, its legacy is what truly matters. Created out of necessity to send images via text-only email servers, Base64 proved so elegantly robust that it became a foundational pillar of modern data transmission.

FAQs

Q: Did Nathaniel Borenstein invent Base64 by himself? A: No. He and Ned Freed authored the MIME RFC that popularized it, but the concept was a collaborative standard built on earlier ideas like uuencode.

Q: Are there alternatives to Base64? A: Yes. Base32, Base58 (popular in crypto), and Base85/Ascii85 (used in PDFs) exist, but Base64 remains the most widely adopted standard.

Q: Will Base64 ever become obsolete? A: Unlikely anytime soon. Even though modern networks can handle raw binary data much better than in the 90s, the need to embed binary data within text formats (like JSON or XML) keeps Base64 indispensable.