URL Shortener
Shorten long links with click stats.
URL Shortener at a glance
URL Shortener is a free online developer tool you can use right now to shorten long links with click stats โ no account, no install and no usage limit. It runs on any modern phone, tablet or computer.
- Price
- Free โ no trial, no paid tier, no watermark
- Sign-up
- Not required
- Where it runs
- Your input is sent to our server to fetch the result, and is not stored
- Works on
- Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge โ desktop, tablet and phone
- Category
- Developer Tools
Your shortened links will appear here.
About URL Shortener
Turn a long URL into a short one that is easier to share, and see how many times it has been clicked.
The practical value is in the places where length genuinely hurts. A URL carrying campaign parameters and session identifiers can run to hundreds of characters, which breaks across lines in emails, gets truncated in printed material, and produces a QR code so dense that phone cameras struggle to read it. A short link solves all three, and QR density is the one people notice least until a code will not scan.
Click counts tell you how many times a link was opened, which is genuinely useful for comparing where an audience came from โ the same destination shared with different short links on different channels shows which channel worked. Be aware that counts include bots and link previews: messaging apps and social platforms fetch a URL to build a preview card, and some of that traffic registers.
One thing to be conscious of when sharing shortened links: recipients cannot see where the link goes before clicking. That is exactly why phishing uses shorteners heavily, and why some corporate mail filters treat shortened links with suspicion. In contexts where trust matters, saying where a link leads alongside it is worth the extra words.
How to use URL Shortener
- Paste the long URL you want to shorten.
- Copy the generated short link and share it.
- Return any time to check how many clicks it has received.
Frequently asked questions
Do the short links expire?
No. Links stay active with no expiry date and no account required to keep them working.
Are the click counts accurate?
They count every request to the short URL, which includes bots and link-preview fetches from messaging apps and social platforms. Treat the number as a good relative measure between channels rather than an exact count of humans.
Why do some email filters flag shortened links?
Because the destination is hidden until clicked, which is a technique phishing relies on. Some corporate filters treat shorteners with suspicion for that reason. If you are emailing a cautious audience, state where the link goes.
Why does a shortened URL make a better QR code?
Because QR codes encode the URL itself โ a longer URL needs more data modules, producing a denser pattern that is harder for a camera to read, especially when printed small. A short link produces a sparse, reliably scannable code.