Free URL Cleaner: Remove Tracking Parameters From Any Link

How to Clean a URL

1. Paste your links

   Paste one URL, a list, or any text with links in it, such as an email. The URL cleaner finds every http, https and www. link.

2. Choose your options

   Unwrap redirects turns Google or Facebook redirect links back into the real page. Aggressive mode also removes weaker signals such as ref and trk. The keep-list protects names you type into it.

3. Read the badges

   Each link shows its clean URL and one badge per removed parameter: who adds it and what it tracks.

4. Copy or download the result

   Copy the clean links as a list, copy your original text with every link swapped for its clean version, or download a .txt file.

5. Check before you share widely

   Open a cleaned link once. If a page needs a parameter that was removed, add its name to the keep-list and clean again.

How the URL Cleaner Works and What Happens to Your Links

Everything happens in your browser. The links you paste are not sent anywhere, stored or logged. Once the page has loaded, the tool works offline. The parameter table below is generated from the same data file the tool uses.

The cleaner never visits your links. It reads each URL as text and compares every parameter name after the ? with a fixed list; only listed names are removed. Some entries apply only on certain sites: s and t are removed only on x.com and twitter.com, because t= on YouTube is the video’s start time. Everything else, including the # fragment, stays exactly as pasted.

A redirect link such as google.com/url?q=… already contains the real destination, so the cleaner decodes it and cleans that too. Short links like t.co or bit.ly keep the destination on a server, and this tool deliberately never visits them.

What Are Tracking Parameters?

Tracking parameters are name=value pairs added to the end of a link, after the ?, that record where a click came from. The page looks the same with or without them; they exist for analytics and advertising.

There are two kinds. Campaign tags, such as utm_source=newsletter or utm_campaign=spring_sale, are the same for everyone who clicks a given link. Google Analytics documents nine of them, from utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign to utm_creative_format. They tell a site that a visit came from an email, but not whose email.

Click IDs are different. gclid, fbclid, msclkid, ttclid, twclid and yclid are unique for each click. The ad platform stores that ID with details of the ad and the account that saw it, and the site sends the ID back when you buy something or sign up, which ties the purchase to one specific click. Email tools go further: Mailchimp’s mc_eid, HubSpot’s _hsenc, Marketo’s mkt_tok and Vero’s vero_id identify the subscriber who received the email.

Why Shared Links Carry Your Identity

Share buttons add their own IDs: si= on YouTube and Spotify, igsh= or igshid= on Instagram, s= and t= on X. They connect the link to the account that shared it, so when a friend opens it the platform can see who shared what with whom, even if the friend is not logged in.

Email links work the same way. Forward a newsletter link that still has mc_eid or _hsenc on it, and anyone who opens it can be counted as you.

Brave describes its query filter as aimed at “preventing the tracking of individual users without interfering with coarse-grained campaign-level tracking”, so it strips click IDs but leaves utm_ tags alone. A URL cleaner does the job on demand, in any browser, and shows what it found.

The Full List of Parameters This URL Cleaner Removes

This is the complete list the tool uses, generated from its data file. A * means every parameter that starts with that text, so utm_* covers utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content, utm_id and the rest. Anything not listed here is left alone.

The list draws on the strip lists published by Firefox and Brave and on the vendors’ own documentation where it exists (Google, Microsoft, Meta, TikTok, Yandex and Mailchimp). Amazon’s tag= affiliate code is not removed, because it decides who earns a commission rather than identifying you. Remove it by hand if you prefer.

Which Redirect Links Can It Unwrap?

Many sites route outgoing clicks through their own address first, to log the click or check it for malware. The real address is still inside, URL-encoded in one parameter. With Unwrap redirects on, the cleaner pulls it out, decodes it and cleans it, up to four levels deep.

Is It Safe to Remove Tracking From a URL?

Yes, for the parameters on this list. Servers don’t use click IDs or campaign tags to choose the page, so the clean link opens the same page. Only the analytics record of where the click came from is lost.

A few cases need care, and the tool handles them. Marketo unsubscribe links need mkt_tok to know who is unsubscribing, so it is kept on any URL that contains “unsubscribe”. The word ref is a real parameter on some sites, such as a code branch on GitHub, so outside Amazon it is removed only in Aggressive mode. Signed download links, password resets and login links carry tokens that the tool never touches because they are not on the list.

These are always kept, because pages need them:

• v, t, list and index on YouTube: the video, the start time and the playlist position
• q, k and keywords on search pages, where they are the search itself
• th and psc on Amazon: the product variant you picked
• id, page, p, sort, filter and similar content parameters on any site
• the fragment after #, including text fragments (#:~:text=) that jump to a quote

Clean URL Examples: Before and After

These are real link shapes, shortened a little. Paste any of them into the tool to see the badges.

• Before sharing: clean a link you are about to post in a chat, a forum or a document, so it doesn’t carry your share ID or subscriber ID.
• Bulk lists: paste an exported list of tabs or bookmarks, clean it, then remove duplicates, since the same page with different tags stops looking like two links.
• Emails: paste a whole email to get every link cleaned, or copy the text back with the clean links in place.

How to Remove Tracking From URLs in Firefox, Brave, Safari and Chrome

Some browsers now strip tracking parameters themselves, using their own short lists. Here is what each one does today and where to switch it on.

Browser lists are deliberately short so they never break a site, and they work silently. This tool’s default list is broader because you are choosing what to share, and it shows every removal so you can check it.

URL Cleaner vs Extensions and Browser Settings

Limits and Troubleshooting

• Only listed parameters are removed. A new or site-specific tracker stays until it is added to the list.
• Short links (t.co, bit.ly, lnkd.in, amzn.to) keep the destination on a server. Expand them first with the URL expander, then clean the result.
• Tracking inside the path or the fragment is not detected, apart from Amazon’s /ref= segment.
• “Not a valid URL” usually means a line break split the link. Join it into one line and clean again.
• “Only http and https links are cleaned”: ftp, mailto and similar links are left as they are.
• If a page looks wrong after cleaning, add the removed parameter’s name to the keep-list, or switch off Aggressive mode.
• Large inputs are fine. The page lists the first 200 results; copy and download include every link.

A clean link removes what the URL says about the click, not what a site learns when you visit it. Cookies, fingerprinting and your IP address still apply, so keep your browser’s tracking protection on as well.