URL Extractor

About URL extractor

The URL extractor finds every web link that begins with http:// or https:// in a piece of text and lists it as a separate row, with copy and open buttons beside each one. It suits anyone who has a wall of text, such as meeting notes, a chat export or page source, and wants only the links.

How to use it

1. Paste your text into the Text to Extract URLs From box.
2. Click Extract URLs to scan it.
3. Look at the results header for the number of links found.
4. Copy one link with its row button, open it in a new tab with the arrow button, or take everything with Copy All.

Links inside running text

See https://example.com/a?b=1 and (http://foo.org/x) for details.

https://example.com/a?b=1
http://foo.org/x

When to use it

• Gathering every reference link from a long document before checking them for dead pages.
• Extracting the links from a pasted newsletter or forum thread to build a reading list.
• Listing the URLs in a chunk of HTML or Markdown source without opening a code editor.
• Comparing which links appear in two drafts by extracting each and then running the lists through a comparer.

Questions about URL extractor

What happens to a comma, period or bracket stuck to the end of a link?

Trailing sentence punctuation and quotes are trimmed, and so is a closing bracket that was not opened inside the link. A balanced pair that belongs to the address, as in a Wikipedia title with (disambiguation) at the end, is kept.

Will it find links that start with www or ftp?

No. Only text beginning with http:// or https:// is matched. A bare www.example.com or an ftp:// address is ignored, so add the scheme first if you need those picked up.

Are repeated links listed twice?

Each distinct link appears once in the list. The number in the heading counts every occurrence in your text, though, so it may exceed the visible rows when a link repeats.

Is the open button safe to click?

It opens the link in a new tab with no referrer sent, but the destination is whatever your text contained. Treat unfamiliar links from untrusted text with the same caution you would anywhere else.

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