Roughly how much larger does binary data become when encoded as Base64?

Base64 encoding works by taking every 3 bytes (24 bits) of raw binary data and splitting them into four 6-bit chunks. Each 6-bit chunk is then mapped to a safe ASCII character (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, etc.). Because 4 characters are now representing what was originally 3 bytes, the data size increases by exactly 33.3%. While this is less efficient than raw binary, it is essential for sending images or keys through protocols like SMTP (email) or JSON, which were only designed to handle text. If bandwidth is a concern, engineers often compress the data *after* encoding to reclaim some of this lost space.