Question 1

Is it safe to remove UTM parameters from a URL?

Accepted Answer

Yes. UTM parameters (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign and friends) only describe the marketing campaign a link was shared through — the page a URL opens never depends on them. The same goes for click IDs like fbclid and gclid. Parameters that DO select content (?id=, ?q=, ?page=) are a different species, which is why this tool removes only a closed list of known tracking parameters instead of guessing.

Question 2

Will the cleaned link still open the same page?

Accepted Answer

Yes — that is the design constraint behind the whole tool. It removes only parameters that identify a campaign rather than a page, edits nothing else (no re-ordering, no re-encoding, the #fragment stays), and it refuses to touch URLs that carry signatures, tokens, or login/unsubscribe paths, where removing anything could break the link.

Question 3

Why weren't some tracking-looking parameters removed?

Accepted Answer

Parameters like ?ref=, ?si= or ?source= are tracking on some sites and functional on others — ?ref= routes content on plenty of sites, and ?tag= filters posts on most blogs. The default clean therefore skips them; the “site-specific deep clean” option applies Brave's per-site rules, which remove exactly those parameters on the sites where they are known to be pure tracking (YouTube, Spotify, X, Amazon, Reddit and others).

Question 4

What is fbclid, and should I remove it?

Accepted Answer

fbclid is a click identifier Facebook appends to every outbound link so the click can be matched to your ad profile. The destination page ignores it, so removing it is safe — and worth doing before you save or share a link, since it uniquely identifies your click.

Question 5

Do my URLs get uploaded anywhere?

Accepted Answer

No. The cleaning runs entirely in your browser — this page ships the rule list as JavaScript and never sends your URLs to a server.

Question 6

Why does it skip links with tokens or signatures?

Accepted Answer

Signed URLs (Amazon S3 downloads, SharePoint shares, magic-login and unsubscribe links) sign the entire query string — removing any parameter, even a harmless-looking one, invalidates the signature and breaks the link. The tool detects those shapes and leaves the whole URL untouched rather than gambling.

Question 7

Can I clean the bookmarks I've already saved, in bulk?

Accepted Answer

Yes — that is what the Bookmark Maestro Chrome extension does. Its Tracking Parameters doctor scans your saved Chrome bookmarks with the same rules as this tool, shows a strike-through preview of exactly what would be removed, rewrites the bookmarks in place, and keeps an undo. Years of saved utm_source= disappear in one pass.

Question 8

What about affiliate tags like Amazon's ?tag=?

Accepted Answer

Affiliate tags are deliberately a separate, off-by-default option: they don't track you across the web the way click IDs do — they credit the creator whose link you clicked. Turn on “Affiliate tags” if you want them gone too.

Group	Parameters	Planted by
Campaign tags	utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content, utm_id, mtm_, itm_	Google Analytics, Matomo, publishers
Ad-click IDs	fbclid, gclid, wbraid, gbraid, dclid, msclkid, twclid, ttclid, li_fat_id, igshid, yclid, srsltid, epik	Facebook, Google, Microsoft, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, Yandex, Pinterest
Email-marketing IDs	mc_eid, mc_cid, mkt_tok, _hsenc, _hsmi, __hssc, vero_id, oly_anon_id, __s, ml_subscriber	Mailchimp, Marketo, HubSpot, Vero, Omeda, Drip, MailerLite
Analytics decorators	_ga, _gl, spm, _openstat	Google Analytics cross-domain linking, Alibaba, OpenStat

Free URL cleaner: remove UTM & tracking parameters

What gets removed — and what never does

Cleaning bookmarks one link at a time?

Frequently asked questions