One of the biggest frustrations I’ve heard from people who use URL shorteners is discovering that their shortened links suddenly stop working. Some services only keep links active for a few hours, days, or weeks. Others put limits on how many people can click before the link breaks. In some cases, they’ll even recycle expired links, which can create confusion or security concerns if someone else uses “your” link. Make sure you read their terms of service to see how long the short link will remain active.

If you’ve ever sent out a shortened link in an email, QR code, or printed it on a flyer, you know how frustrating it can be when people click and get an error page. That’s where choosing the right URL shortener makes a big difference.

How T.LY Handles Expiration

When I created T.LY, one of my goals was to make a simple, reliable tool. With T.LY, free shortened links do not expire. As long as your link doesn’t violate our terms of service, it will remain active indefinitely. That means you can confidently share a link today and know it will still be working months or years from now.

If you want to update, redirect, or delete your links in the future, T.LY makes it easy. To get started, you need to register an account to manage them. An account requires a valid subscription after the trial ends.

How to Test if a URL is Expired

We offer a URL Expander Tool that can check the final destination of a short link. It will follow multiple redirects and is a great way to check whether a URL is active. If you see a 404 error, then you know the urls is no longer redirecting correctly.

Please feel free to reach out to support if you ever have any questions about an expired short link.