This Mac App Automatically Removes Unnecessary Junk From Any URL

You copy a link to send it to a friend. When you paste it's embarrassingly long, with a question mark followed by a variety of incomprehensible gibberish after the actual link you wanted to share.

Why does this happen? The answer, basically, is that websites want to track your activity. A common way they do this is with an Urchin Tracking Module, or UTM for short. It's annoying, and in a professional context, unacceptable. I find myself stripping down links multiple times a day, which is why I was excited to find the app Clean Links.

Available for macOS and iOS devices, this application can automatically remove all of the crap that's embedded in a URL. On the Mac it can even strip that junk from every URL you copy, automatically-just open up the app's settings and check the Monitor Clipboard option.

Credit: Justin Pot

With that setting turned on, and the application left open in the menu bar, every URL you copy will be automatically stripped of junk as soon as you copy it. The application is worth installing on Mac for this reason alone.

The mobile version doesn't work that way, mostly because of the limitations of iOS. There's another cool feature on mobile, though: the ability to scan a QR code, look at the URL before opening it, and strip out any UTMs before opening. (Opening a URL code with other apps, including the Camera app, generally opens the link without showing it to you, which is a bit of a security concern.)

And to top it off, Clean Links is free-no in-app purchase required.