Replace the Google Chart QR code API
QR codes from chart.googleapis.com now return 404. Map chl, chs and chld to the free QRdx image API, and update old URLs with one command.
Google deprecated its Image Charts in April 2012, and that included QR codes at chart.googleapis.com/chart?cht=qr. The endpoint now answers 404 (we checked on November 13, 2026), so old <img> tags, emails and spreadsheets that used it show a broken image.
The QRdx image API works the same way: a GET URL that returns the image, with no account or key. Change the host and rename three parameters.
Before and after
https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=300x300&chl=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com&chld=M|2
https://api.qrdx.dev/v1/qr?format=png&size=300&data=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com&level=M&margin=2Both draw a 300 × 300 PNG of https://example.com at error correction M with a 2-module margin.
Parameter mapping
| Google Chart | QRdx | Notes |
|---|---|---|
cht=qr | not needed | The endpoint only draws QR codes. Left in, it's ignored. |
chl=<data> | data=<data> | URL-encoded the same way, up to 2048 characters. |
chs=<width>x<height> | size=<width> | One number, because QR codes are square: 64 to 2048 pixels. |
chld=<level>|<margin> | level=<level>&margin=<margin> | The same letters, L, M, Q and H. The margin is in modules, 0 to 16. |
choe=UTF-8 | not needed | QRdx always encodes text as UTF-8, which was Google's default. There's no Shift_JIS or ISO-8859-1 option. Left in, it's ignored. |
| always PNG | format=png | QRdx returns SVG unless you ask for png, webp or eps. Keep PNG for email, since many email clients don't show SVG. |
Two defaults differ. Without chld, Google used error correction L; QRdx uses Q, which survives more damage but makes a denser code. Add level=L if you need the old look. Both default to a 4-module margin.
Migrate with one command
This rewrites every Google Chart QR URL in the files you name, including the older chart.apis.google.com host. It changes the host and path, renames chl, chs and chld, and adds format=png so the images stay PNG. Perl comes with macOS and most Linux distributions.
perl -pi -e 's{https?://chart\.(?:googleapis|apis\.google)\.com/chart\?([^\s"\x27<>)]*)}{my $q = $1; $q =~ s/(^|[&;])chl=/${1}data=/; $q =~ s/(^|[&;])chs=(\d+)x\d+/${1}size=$2/; $q =~ s/(^|[&;])chld=([LMQH])(?:\||%7C)(\d+)/${1}level=$2&margin=$3/i; $q =~ s/(^|[&;])chld=([LMQH])/${1}level=$2/i; "https://api.qrdx.dev/v1/qr?format=png&$q"}ge' index.htmlRun it where you can review the change, such as a git checkout, and check the diff. To find the files that still use the old API:
grep -rlE "chart\.(googleapis|apis\.google)\.com/chart" .A chs under 64 pixels (50x50) or over 2048 gets a 400 from QRdx, so change those sizes by hand.
In code
// Before
const src = `https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=200x200&chl=${encodeURIComponent(link)}`;
// After
const src = `https://api.qrdx.dev/v1/qr?format=png&size=200&data=${encodeURIComponent(link)}`;In Google Sheets:
=IMAGE("https://api.qrdx.dev/v1/qr?format=png&size=150&data="&ENCODEURL(A2))Sheets loads images through Google's own servers, so a sheet with hundreds of codes can run into the per-IP limit below. For a big list, make the files once with the bulk generator or the CLI's qrdx batch.
What else to know
- Rate limit: 300 requests a minute per IP address. Over it you get
429with aRetry-Afterheader. - Caching: the same URL always returns the same bytes, so responses are cached for a year (
Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable). - More options: colors (
fg,bg), module and eye shapes, a logo icon (logoIcon) and frames. Try them in the URL builder, or read the parameters. - Self-hosting: a self-hosted QRdx serves the same API at
/api/v1/qron your own domain.
Last updated on