URL Parser & Decoder
100% privateEvery part of a link, laid out and decoded — clean it, unwrap it or compare two, on your device.
Read in this tab. The link is never sent anywhere or saved — safe for links with passwords or sign-in tokens in them.
Advanced options
Readable links still open in any modern browser, but some apps and older systems only accept the encoded form. If in doubt, keep the first.
Off by default. An affiliate tag pays the site that sent you a small commission at no cost to you — Nopturnia’s own product links carry one, so we would rather say so than quietly strip everyone else’s.
Handy before comparing or diffing links in a spreadsheet. Websites ignore the order.
Checking usage…
Every part of the address
Safety checks
Copy it as
Step by step
How to decode and clean up a URL
Four steps, no account, and the link never leaves the tab you pasted it into.
Paste the link
Paste it into the box — the whole thing, or a message with a link somewhere inside it. A link your email app split over several lines is joined back together, and a missing https:// is filled in for you.
Read it part by part
The site it really goes to is shown first, then each part on its own line: the page, and every ?name=value after it, decoded so %20 reads as a space. A link hidden inside the link is opened up underneath it.
Switch off what you don’t want
Tracking parameters such as utm_source and fbclid are switched off already. Untick or tick anything else; the link rebuilds as you go, keeping every remaining part exactly as the site sent it.
Copy it — or compare
Press Copy clean link, copy any single part with the button beside it, or take the whole thing as JSON. To find out why two links behave differently, switch to Compare two.
Private by design
Why a link is worth keeping to yourself
A link looks like an address, but it often carries a key. Password-reset links, “sign in with Google” callbacks, shared-document links, magic login links from your email and signed download links all have a credential inside them, and whoever holds the link can often use it. Most online URL tools send what you paste to their server to read it. This one has no server to send it to.
Nothing is uploaded
The parser is downloaded to your browser once and does all its reading there. The link you paste never enters a network request — not to us, not to a “link checker”, not to the site the link points at. We never open it.
Nothing is saved
No history, not even in your own browser’s storage, and nothing in this page’s own address — so the link is not in your browsing history or in our analytics either. Close the tab and it is gone.
Secrets are flagged
When a link carries something that looks like a sign-in token, a key or a password, the tool says so and blurs it until you choose to look. Worth knowing before you paste that link into a chat, a ticket or a bug report.
To be precise about what does leave your device — because “100% private” is easy to say and worth checking. Three things, none of them your link:
1. The first time you read a link, this page sends one anonymous message to our counter saying “url-parser was used”. Not the link, not the site, not its length, nothing identifying you. It exists so the usage number in the panel is a real one rather than something we invented.
2. Google Analytics records the page view and that the tool was used, the same as on every other page of this site. It is told whether you read one link or compared two, and — as a plain yes or no — whether any tracking parameters were found and whether there was a link inside the link. Never the link, the website or any part of it. Block it and the parser works exactly the same.
3. When the page first loads, the fonts it is set in are fetched from Google Fonts, which means Google sees your IP address at that moment — the same as on every other page of this site. Once the page has loaded, that request never happens again, which is why the offline test below works.
Your link is in none of them. You can check that rather than take our word for it: turn off your wifi, reload this page and keep pasting links. It still works, because there is nothing for it to send.
At a glance
Tool specifications
| Input | Any link — web, email (mailto:), app links — a bare domain, a bare query string, or a message with a link inside it |
|---|---|
| Shows | The real site name, every part of the address, and each query parameter decoded, including repeated and empty ones |
| Decodes | Percent-encoding (%20, %2F), + as a space, double encoding, international (Punycode) site names, JSON and base64 values, JWT tokens and Unix timestamps |
| Links inside links | Opened up underneath, three levels deep — Google, Facebook, Outlook Safe Links and other redirect wrappers |
| Cleaning | Switches off campaign and click tracking (utm_*, fbclid, gclid, msclkid and about 60 more, including site-specific ones for Amazon, Google, YouTube and others). Every remaining part is kept exactly as sent |
| Affiliate tags | Labelled, kept by default, removable with one switch |
| Comparison | Two links, part by part and parameter by parameter: same, changed, only in A, only in B — with a one-line verdict |
| Copy formats | The cleaned link (working or readable), any single part, indented text, JSON, a Python dict, or the query string on its own |
| Safety checks | Lookalike letters, a fake site name before an @, link shorteners, free-hosting pages, downloads and unencrypted http — read from the text alone, with no lookup |
| Length | Warns past 8,000 characters (many servers refuse longer addresses); reads up to 200,000 |
| Where processing happens | In your browser, on your device — nothing is uploaded |
| Saved anywhere | No. Not on a server, not in your browser’s storage, and not in this page’s address |
| Works offline | Yes, once the page has loaded, including as an installed app |
| Sign-up | Not required, not offered |
| Price | Free |
Questions
Links, answered
Is the link I paste uploaded or stored anywhere?
What are utm_source, fbclid and the other tracking parameters?
utm_source=newsletter says you came from an email; fbclid and gclid are unique IDs that Facebook and Google Ads attach to each click so the visit can be matched to an advert. They do not change what the page shows you. They do make a link long and ugly, and when you share one, the next person’s visit is credited to your click.Will removing tracking parameters break the link?
ref, si or t only on the sites where that is known to be true — on YouTube, t=42 is where the video starts, so it stays. Everything you keep is copied exactly as the site sent it, not re-encoded. If a cleaned link ever misbehaves, tick the parameter back on and copy again.Why is Amazon’s tag= left in by default?
What do %20 and “encoded twice” mean?
%20, a slash %2F, an “é” %C3%A9. This tool turns those back into the characters they stand for. “Encoded twice” means a value was put through that process two times, so a space shows up as %2520 — a common bug when one system builds a link and hands it to another. The tool shows both the once-decoded and the fully decoded value so you can see which one the site meant.How do I compare two URLs?
Why does it warn me about a token in my link?
token, access_token, key, signature or similar — or a value shaped like a JWT — usually lets whoever holds the link sign in, reset a password or download a private file without being asked who they are. Opening it yourself is fine. Pasting it into a group chat, a public bug report or a website that uploads what you give it is how accounts get taken over. The value is blurred on screen until you choose to show it, so it does not leak in a screenshot or a screen share.Do I need to sign up, and is there a limit?
Keep it handy
Save it, share it, or tell us what’s missing
Come back to it
Bookmark the page, or pin it to your saved tools so it sits at the top of the tools list on this device.
A link read wrong?
If a tracker slipped through, a real parameter was switched off, or a link was misread, tell us which site it was from — please describe it rather than pasting the link itself if it might carry a token. The form opens with the tool already filled in.
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Every one of these runs the same way — on your device, with nothing uploaded.