How to shorten a link for free, step by step

Step 1: paste the long address

Open the home page and paste the full address into the field, starting with https://. The page refuses anything a browser cannot open: a missing scheme, a private network name, or an address that already carries a password inside it (RFC 3986 calls that part the userinfo, and a link that hides one is a phishing pattern, so the shortener refuses it).

Step 2: pick the ending and the lifetime

A press of Shorten is enough; the rest is optional. A custom ending replaces the random code with a word you choose, four to forty characters. The expiry selects between an hour, a day and the longest free lifetime the operator set, and a premium key extends it further.

• Custom ending: readable, memorable, typeable — the link becomes part of the text it sits in.
• Expiry: a link that should die with its campaign takes an hour or a day.
• Password: the link opens to a password field first; the destination never shows without it.

Step 3: share the short link

The result page shows the short link, a QR code for it, and a copy button. Paste it into a message, a post, a slide or a printout. A QR code turns the same link into something a camera reads, which is how a poster carries a web address at all.

What the visitor sees

A short link hides where it goes; that is its whole point, and the reason an unsolicited short link deserves suspicion (OWASP lists unvalidated redirects among the classic ways a trusted-looking address delivers someone elsewhere). So the service shows an intermediate page: the full destination address, the title the destination page declares, and a Continue control. The visitor reads the target before the browser follows it — the accessibility guidance says a link's purpose should be clear from its text, and a short link's text cannot carry it, so the page supplies it (WCAG 2.2).