Unshorten a URL

Paste a shortened link and see exactly where it lands — without visiting it. Works with every shortener, because it follows redirects rather than recognising services.

What you are actually checking

A short link is a promise with the details removed. Sometimes that is convenience — a clean URL in a printed advert, a link that fits in a post. Sometimes it is the point: the destination is hidden because you would not click it if you could see it.

Expanding the link on a server rather than in your browser separates those two cases safely. You get the destination, the full chain that led there, and any warnings worth having — a downgrade to plain HTTP, several shorteners stacked on top of each other, a destination that returns an error.

One caveat worth stating plainly: this tells you where a link goes, not whether the destination is trustworthy. A recognisable domain is not a guarantee.

Frequently asked questions

Is it safe to expand a link I do not trust?
Expanding it here is. The chain is followed on our server, so no cookies reach your browser, no JavaScript from the destination runs on your machine, and the destination sees our server rather than your IP address. You see the final URL without having visited it. That said, seeing a destination is not the same as vetting it — a legitimate-looking domain can still host something harmful.

Which shorteners does this work with?
All of them. It follows redirects rather than recognising services, so bit.ly, t.co, tinyurl.com, lnkd.in, amzn.to, youtu.be, branded short domains and internal tracking links all work identically. Around fifty well-known services are named in the output when they appear, which is useful for spotting stacked shorteners.

What does it mean if a link goes through several shorteners?
Stacking shorteners has almost no legitimate use and is a common way to hide a destination from both people and automated scanners. If you see two or more chained together on a link you did not create, treat it as a warning rather than a curiosity — the tool flags this explicitly.

Why does the expanded link have tracking parameters on it?
Most shorteners append campaign parameters such as utm_source or fbclid to the destination so the click can be attributed. They are usually harmless and can normally be stripped from the URL without changing the page you land on. The tool lists which tracking parameters survived to the final URL.

The short link did not expand. Why?
Usually one of three things: the link has expired or was deleted by whoever created it, the shortener requires a real browser and serves an interstitial instead of a redirect, or the destination is refusing automated requests. The result will show the status code it received, which distinguishes these cases.