当其他人都在讨论代数公式时，我宁愿用BASE64本身来告诉我:

$ echo "Including padding, a base64 string requires four bytes for every three-byte chunk of the original string, including any partial chunks. One or two bytes extra at the end of the string will still get converted to four bytes in the base64 string when padding is added. Unless you have a very specific use, it is best to add the padding, usually an equals character. I added an extra byte for a null character in C, because ASCII strings without this are a little dangerous and you'd need to carry the string length separately."| wc -c

525

$ echo "Including padding, a base64 string requires four bytes for every three-byte chunk of the original string, including any partial chunks. One or two bytes extra at the end of the string will still get converted to four bytes in the base64 string when padding is added. Unless you have a very specific use, it is best to add the padding, usually an equals character. I added an extra byte for a null character in C, because ASCII strings without this are a little dangerous and you'd need to carry the string length separately." | base64 | wc -c

710

因此，3个字节由4个base64字符表示的公式似乎是正确的。

4 * n / 3为无填充长度。

并四舍五入到最接近4的倍数进行填充，因为4是2的幂，可以使用逐位逻辑运算。

((4 * n / 3) + 3) & ~3

如果有人有兴趣在JS中实现@Pedro Silva解决方案，我只是为它移植了相同的解决方案:

const getBase64Size = (base64) => {
  let padding = base64.length
    ? getBase64Padding(base64)
    : 0
  return ((Math.ceil(base64.length / 4) * 3 ) - padding) / 1000
}

const getBase64Padding = (base64) => {
  return endsWith(base64, '==')
    ? 2
    : 1
}

const endsWith = (str, end) => {
  let charsFromEnd = end.length
  let extractedEnd = str.slice(-charsFromEnd)
  return extractedEnd === end
}

简单的javascript实现

function sizeOfBase64String(base64String) {
    if (!base64String) return 0;
    const padding = (base64String.match(/(=*)$/) || [])[1].length;
    return 4 * Math.ceil((base64String.length / 3)) - padding;
}

(试图给出一个简洁而完整的推导。)

每个输入字节有8位，所以对于n个输入字节，我们得到:

N × 8输入位

每6位是一个输出字节，因此:

ceil (n - 6) = ceil (n×8×4 - 3 )      输出字节

这是没有填充的。

对于填充，我们四舍五入为四个输出字节中的多个:

ceil (ceil (n×4 / 3))×4 = ceil (n×4 / 3 - 4)×4 = ceil (n - 3)×4字节输出

见嵌套划分(维基百科)的第一个等价。

使用整数算术，ceil(n / m)可以计算为(n + m - 1) div m， 因此我们得到:

(n * 4 + 2) div 3没有填充 (n + 2) div 3 * 4与填充

说明:

 n   with padding    (n + 2) div 3 * 4    without padding   (n * 4 + 2) div 3 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 0                           0                                      0
 1   AA==                    4            AA                        2
 2   AAA=                    4            AAA                       3
 3   AAAA                    4            AAAA                      4
 4   AAAAAA==                8            AAAAAA                    6
 5   AAAAAAA=                8            AAAAAAA                   7
 6   AAAAAAAA                8            AAAAAAAA                  8
 7   AAAAAAAAAA==           12            AAAAAAAAAA               10
 8   AAAAAAAAAAA=           12            AAAAAAAAAAA              11
 9   AAAAAAAAAAAA           12            AAAAAAAAAAAA             12
10   AAAAAAAAAAAAAA==       16            AAAAAAAAAAAAAA           14
11   AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=       16            AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA          15
12   AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA       16            AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA         16

最后，在MIME Base64编码的情况下，每76个输出字节需要两个额外的字节(CR LF)，这取决于是否需要一个结束换行符。

每个字符代表6位(log2(64) = 6)。

因此用4个字符表示4 * 6 = 24位= 3个字节。

所以你需要4*(n/3)个字符来表示n个字节，这需要四舍五入到4的倍数。

由于四舍五入到4的倍数而导致的未使用填充字符的数量显然是0、1、2或3。