URL Shortener
betaTurn a URL of up to 10,000 characters into a short link — best-effort, made for handing off, not forever
How it works
Paste any http(s) URL up to 10,000 characters and press Shorten. This is the one Bench tool that talks to a server: the destination is saved in a private Vercel Blob store (the code is a fingerprint of the URL, so the same URL always gets the same link) and /s/<code> answers with a 302 redirect. Storage is capped well inside Vercel's free allowance; when the cap is reached, links are evicted first-in-first-out weighted by size — an old, large link is cleared before a recent, small one. There is no guarantee that any link lives forever; that is the trade-off for a free, no-signup shortener. Use it to hand a giant URL to someone today, not as a permanent reference. The long URL never enters this page's address bar, and nothing is logged beyond what Vercel keeps for the request.
Questions
How long does a short link last?
As long as there is room. The store is capped below Vercel's free Blob quota; once it fills, links are removed oldest-and-largest first (ranked by bytes × age). A small link may live a long time, a 10,000-character link will go sooner. Nothing is guaranteed — do not rely on these links in published documents or code.
Why the 10,000-character limit?
Most browsers and servers handle URLs of around 2,000 characters comfortably and start failing somewhere between 8,000 and 32,000. A 10,000-character ceiling covers huge query strings, data-heavy deep links and share URLs from other Bench tools while keeping every stored link small.
Is it private?
The destination URL is stored server-side in a private Vercel Blob store — it is not publicly listable, but anyone holding the short link can follow it. Do not shorten URLs that contain secrets or tokens you would not paste into a chat.
What happens if I shorten the same URL twice?
You get the same short link. The code is derived from a SHA-256 fingerprint of the URL, so repeating a request never creates duplicates.
Why does the redirect use 302?
Because links can expire. A temporary (302) redirect tells browsers and crawlers not to cache the mapping permanently, and the redirect responses are marked noindex.
Can I delete a link?
Not yet. Links are cleared automatically as the store fills. If you need one gone sooner, open an issue on GitHub with the code.
Do the Share buttons use it?
Yes. When a tool's share link is longer than 2,000 characters, Share copies a short link instead of the full URL (shift-click to copy the full URL). Short links are best-effort, so the full URL — which still carries the entire state — remains the durable form.