Snip

Some links are longer than the message you want to wrap around them: a path five levels deep, a slug that repeats the title, a tail of tracking parameters. Sent in a chat window or read out from a slide, that link becomes the whole message.

Snip trades it for a short one. Paste the URL, press the button, and a snipp.cc address comes back on the same screen. No account, nothing to install.

How it works

1. Paste the link. Drop the long URL into the box on snipp.cc. Web addresses starting with http or https are accepted; anything else is turned away.
2. Press Shorten. The short address appears where the box was, with a copy button next to it.
3. Keep the delete key. It shows up once, under the link. Paste it back into the Take a link down box further down the page whenever you want the link gone. Lose the key and nobody can take the link down, so copy it somewhere before you close the tab.

Features

• Nothing to sign up for — no account to make, and no cookie left in your browser.
• A key that undoes it — every link comes with one, and a box on the same page takes the link down when you paste the key back. Nothing to install and no request to hand-write, though the short link doubles as an API endpoint if you would rather script it.
• No expiry date — a short link keeps working until someone deletes it, and nothing is reclaimed for sitting unused.
• Random addresses only — you cannot choose the ending, which also means nobody can grab a word that impersonates a bank or a shop.
• Nothing counted — clicks are not tallied and visits are not logged, so there is no dashboard and nothing to leak.
• A QR code away — paste the short link into the QR Code Generator when it needs to go on paper.

FAQ

Is it free? Yes, and it needs no account. That is where things stand today rather than a promise: running it costs something, and if a paid tier or a lower limit ever becomes necessary, this page will say so before it happens.

There are caps in the meantime, since every new link comes out of one shared daily allowance and a single bulk run would empty it for everyone else. From one address that works out to about a link every ten seconds and 50 a day. The daily figure is exact and resets at midnight UTC; the ten second gap is approximate, so an extra link sometimes slips through before the wait applies.

Can I choose my own short address? No. Every link gets a random ending of seven characters. Custom endings are how shorteners end up hosting paypal and your-bank-login, and one abused domain takes every link on it down with it. That may be worth revisiting if Snip ever gets accounts to tie a name to.

How many people clicked my link? Snip does not count. Nothing about a visit is recorded, so there are no numbers to show you. If you need click data, a shortener built around a dashboard is a better fit.

A snipp.cc link is being used for something bad. What now? Mail the link to im@snipp.cc and it gets taken down. Links can keep redirecting for up to a minute after removal, then stop everywhere.