Morse Code Translator
Encode text to Morse, or decode Morse back to English. ITU standard, instant, runs in your browser. Free, no signup.
How Morse code works
Morse code represents every letter and digit as a sequence of short signals (dots) and long signals (dashes). The most common letters get the shortest sequences — E is a single dot, T is a single dash — which made the code fast to transmit by telegraph in the 1840s and is still why pilots, ham radio operators, and emergency services learn it today.
Spacing rules
Between dots and dashes within a letter: no space. Between letters: one space. Between words: a slash (/) with a space on either side. This convention avoids ambiguity — without it, two short letters could be mistaken for one long one.
Famous Morse sequences
SOS is ... --- ... — chosen in 1906 not as an abbreviation, but because the pattern is unmistakable and symmetric. The opening of Beethoven's 5th Symphony (three short, one long) happens to spell V in Morse, which is why the BBC used it as a wartime call sign for “V for Victory”.
Try more codec tools
For a different kind of encoding, try our Binary translator, the Braille translator, or the Caesar cipher encoder/decoder.