Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding scheme that represents binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation. It is commonly used when there is a need to encode binary data that needs to be stored and transferred over media that are designed to deal with text.

Common use cases include:

• Encoding binary data in email attachments
• Embedding image data in web pages
• Storing complex data in JSON format
• URL-safe data encoding

Learn more about Base64 on Wikipedia.