diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index eb7e1f879..4edee4137 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -2999,7 +2999,6 @@ dependencies = [
  "tokio",
  "tracing",
  "url",
- "urlencoding",
 ]
 
 [[package]]
diff --git a/crates/routes/Cargo.toml b/crates/routes/Cargo.toml
index a614ba42d..6d74f0aae 100644
--- a/crates/routes/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/routes/Cargo.toml
@@ -32,5 +32,4 @@ serde = { workspace = true }
 url = { workspace = true }
 tracing = { workspace = true }
 tokio = { workspace = true }
-urlencoding = { workspace = true }
 rss = "2.0.8"
diff --git a/crates/routes/src/images.rs b/crates/routes/src/images.rs
index 10ffb57de..307d0ab9f 100644
--- a/crates/routes/src/images.rs
+++ b/crates/routes/src/images.rs
@@ -22,7 +22,6 @@ use reqwest_middleware::{ClientWithMiddleware, RequestBuilder};
 use serde::Deserialize;
 use std::time::Duration;
 use url::Url;
-use urlencoding::decode;
 
 pub fn config(
   cfg: &mut web::ServiceConfig,
@@ -255,7 +254,7 @@ pub async fn image_proxy(
   client: web::Data<ClientWithMiddleware>,
   context: web::Data<LemmyContext>,
 ) -> LemmyResult<HttpResponse> {
-  let url = Url::parse(&decode(&params.url)?)?;
+  let url = Url::parse(&params.url)?;
 
   // Check that url corresponds to a federated image so that this can't be abused as a proxy
   // for arbitrary purposes.