YOURLS: Your Own URL Shortener

Bookmarklets

YOURLS comes with handy bookmarklets for easier link shortening and sharing.

Standard or Instant, Simple or Custom

• The Standard Bookmarklets will take you to a page where you can easily edit or delete your brand new short URL.
• The Instant Bookmarklets will pop the short URL without leaving the page you are viewing (depending on the page and server configuration, they may silently fail)
• The Simple Bookmarklets will generate a short URL with a random or sequential keyword.
• The Custom Keyword Bookmarklets will prompt you for a custom keyword first.

If you want to share a description along with the link you're shortening, simply select text on the page you're viewing before clicking on your bookmarklet link

Important Note: bookmarklets may fail on websites with https, especially the "Instant" bookrmarklets. There is nothing you can do about this.

The Bookmarklets

Click and drag links to your toolbar (or right-click and bookmark it)

Social Bookmarklets

Create a short URL and share it on social networks, all in one click! Click and drag links to your toolbar (or right-click and bookmark it)

Shorten and share:

YOURLS & Facebook YOURLS & Twitter YOURLS & Tumblr

Prefix-n-Shorten

When viewing a page, you can also prefix its full URL: just head to your browser's address bar, add "demo-yourls.koonly.com/" to the beginning of the current URL (right before its 'http://' part) and hit enter.

Note: this will probably not work if your web server is running on Windows.

Secure passwordless API call

YOURLS allows API calls the old fashioned way, using username and password parameters. If you're worried about sending your credentials into the wild, you can also make API calls without using your login or your password, using a secret signature token.

Your secret signature token: Cannot generate auth signature: no username (It's a secret. Keep it secret)

This signature token can only be used with the API, not with the admin interface.

• Usage of the signature token

  Simply use parameter signature in your API requests. Example:

  https://demo-yourls.koonly.com/yourls-api.php?signature=Cannot generate auth signature: no username&action=...

• Usage of a time limited signature token

  <?php
  $timestamp = time();
  // actual value: $time = 1734859282
  $signature = md5( $timestamp . 'Cannot generate auth signature: no username' );
  // actual value: $signature = "3dee06e2c6fe8ef2e7db00f4fb45e932"
  ?>
  

  Now use parameters signature and timestamp in your API requests. Example:

  https://demo-yourls.koonly.com/yourls-api.php?timestamp=$timestamp&signature=$signature&action=...

  Actual values:
  https://demo-yourls.koonly.com/yourls-api.php?timestamp=1734859282&signature=3dee06e2c6fe8ef2e7db00f4fb45e932&action=...

  This URL would be valid for only 43200 seconds

See the Passwordless API page on the wiki. See the API documentation for more