diff --git a/backend/danswer/configs/app_configs.py b/backend/danswer/configs/app_configs.py
index 91df1fe877..e98c6ead67 100644
--- a/backend/danswer/configs/app_configs.py
+++ b/backend/danswer/configs/app_configs.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import os
+import urllib.parse
 
 from danswer.configs.constants import AuthType
 from danswer.configs.constants import DocumentIndexType
@@ -117,7 +118,10 @@ except ValueError:
 # Below are intended to match the env variables names used by the official postgres docker image
 # https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres
 POSTGRES_USER = os.environ.get("POSTGRES_USER") or "postgres"
-POSTGRES_PASSWORD = os.environ.get("POSTGRES_PASSWORD") or "password"
+# URL-encode the password for asyncpg to avoid issues with special characters on some machines.
+POSTGRES_PASSWORD = urllib.parse.quote_plus(
+    os.environ.get("POSTGRES_PASSWORD") or "password"
+)
 POSTGRES_HOST = os.environ.get("POSTGRES_HOST") or "localhost"
 POSTGRES_PORT = os.environ.get("POSTGRES_PORT") or "5432"
 POSTGRES_DB = os.environ.get("POSTGRES_DB") or "postgres"