How to Safely Use Base64 in APIs

Base64 is useful for transporting binary data in JSON, but it increases payload size and can hide malformed input if validation is weak.

Recommended workflow

• Validate MIME type and expected size before decoding.
• Reject oversized payloads early to avoid memory spikes.
• Use URL-safe Base64 for tokens (-, _).
• Keep hashes alongside payloads for integrity checks.

Use: File → Base64, Base64 → File, SHA-256 Hash.