A link copied out of an email newsletter usually arrives dragging a tail: a couple of utm_ tags, maybe an fbclid, sometimes a click ID longer than the page name itself. None of that changes which page loads — it just records who forwarded the link and where they clicked. This tool cuts that tail off, one link or a thousand, and tells you exactly what each one was carrying.
How to use
- Paste your links into the top box, one URL per line. Cleaning runs on its own about 150 ms after you stop typing — there is no button to press.
- Read the stripped result in the Cleaned URLs box, or use Copy all to take the whole list, or Download to save it as
cleaned-urls.txt. - Scroll to What was removed for a per-link breakdown: each deleted parameter shows as a chip, and hovering a chip reveals its value and the platform that set it.
- Check the two counters for a running total of links cleaned and tracking parameters removed.
- Hit Clear to empty the input and start over.
How it works
Each line is handed to the browser’s built-in URL parser, which splits it into scheme, host, path and query string. Only the query string is touched. Every parameter key is checked against a list of known trackers grouped by who sets them, matched two ways: exact names (fbclid, gclid, msclkid) and whole prefix families (anything starting utm_, vero_ or oly_). Matching ignores case. A few trackers use letters that innocent sites also use for real content — bare ?t= and ?s= on Twitter/X, ?si= on Spotify and YouTube — so those keys are only stripped when the link’s host actually belongs to that platform. Everything unrecognised is left byte-for-byte where it was.
Take https://shop.example.au/boots?colour=olive&utm_source=insta&utm_medium=story&fbclid=IwAR3kQ9x&size=11. Five keys get inspected. utm_source and utm_medium match the utm_ prefix; fbclid is an exact Facebook click ID — three removals. colour and size match nothing, so they stay. The query is re-serialised and you get back https://shop.example.au/boots?colour=olive&size=11, with the three cut parameters listed below tagged “UTM campaign tags” and “Facebook”. A link that had no trackers is echoed back untouched, marked “Already clean”, so the tool never silently reshuffles a URL it did not need to change.
Use cases & limitations
Clean a link before you share it, bookmark it, paste it into a bug report, or archive it — anywhere the recipient has no business knowing which campaign you came from. Pasting a batch of newsletter or ad links and reading the platform tags is also a quick way to see who is tracking a given site. Because the whole thing runs offline once loaded, it works on a plane or behind a firewall. If your next step is generating a QR code or a clean slug, strip the parameters here first so the tracking never gets baked in.
The honest limit: this edits the query string and nothing else. A tracker built into the path itself, or one hidden behind a link-shortener redirect, survives — the tool does not follow redirects or unwrap shortened links to find the real destination. It also only removes parameters it recognises, so a brand-new or renamed tracker slips through until the list catches up.
Privacy note
The link never leaves your device. Parsing and editing use the browser’s own URL API with no network call, which matters because the URL you are about to report or archive may itself contain a session token or search term you would rather not log anywhere. If you want to see who is quietly building a profile from links like these, the browser fingerprint tool exposes what your own device leaks even when no tag is attached; to understand the %20-style escaping inside a messy query, reach for the URL encoder/decoder.