Clean all URLs in clipboard
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I know firefox has the very useful "Copy clean Link" option in the context menu, but I would like a similar feature for copying links from any other software, like spotify for example. So I am looking for some software that hooks into the clipboard pipeline, and cleans any URL that gets added. I tried googling for something like it, but was completely unsuccessful. Does anyone have a clue how I might go about achieving this?
Thanks in advance
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I know firefox has the very useful "Copy clean Link" option in the context menu, but I would like a similar feature for copying links from any other software, like spotify for example. So I am looking for some software that hooks into the clipboard pipeline, and cleans any URL that gets added. I tried googling for something like it, but was completely unsuccessful. Does anyone have a clue how I might go about achieving this?
Thanks in advance
I wish that option was the default in Firefox.
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I wish that option was the default in Firefox.
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I know firefox has the very useful "Copy clean Link" option in the context menu, but I would like a similar feature for copying links from any other software, like spotify for example. So I am looking for some software that hooks into the clipboard pipeline, and cleans any URL that gets added. I tried googling for something like it, but was completely unsuccessful. Does anyone have a clue how I might go about achieving this?
Thanks in advance
That'd be cool. Whenever I'm sharing a YT link, I'm always a bit suspicious of what info the youtu.be URL is hiding, so I paste it into a browser to get a clean URL.
Maybe this is silly, but I'd be cool to do that automatically.
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I know firefox has the very useful "Copy clean Link" option in the context menu, but I would like a similar feature for copying links from any other software, like spotify for example. So I am looking for some software that hooks into the clipboard pipeline, and cleans any URL that gets added. I tried googling for something like it, but was completely unsuccessful. Does anyone have a clue how I might go about achieving this?
Thanks in advance
You never define "clean".
To strip excess URL parameters (i.e. beginning "&", almost certainly junk) if the clipboard buffer contains a URL and only a URL (Wayland only):
if url=$(printf '%s' "$(wl-paste --no-newline | awk '$1=$1' ORS=' ')" | egrep -o 'https?://[^ ]+') ; then wl-copy "${url%%\&*}" fi -
You never define "clean".
To strip excess URL parameters (i.e. beginning "&", almost certainly junk) if the clipboard buffer contains a URL and only a URL (Wayland only):
if url=$(printf '%s' "$(wl-paste --no-newline | awk '$1=$1' ORS=' ')" | egrep -o 'https?://[^ ]+') ; then wl-copy "${url%%\&*}" fiQuery parameters are junk? They have tons of legitimate uses, they’re one of the better places to keep state.
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It's never worked for me either. The ClearURLs addon has a function to copy a clean URL and that works great though. It's open source, so maybe someone could turn its cleaning function into a program that could be used for the clipboard.
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You never define "clean".
To strip excess URL parameters (i.e. beginning "&", almost certainly junk) if the clipboard buffer contains a URL and only a URL (Wayland only):
if url=$(printf '%s' "$(wl-paste --no-newline | awk '$1=$1' ORS=' ')" | egrep -o 'https?://[^ ]+') ; then wl-copy "${url%%\&*}" fiFair enough, I haven't given that too much thought myself until now. After playing around with Firefox's URL cleaning, I realized there are some parameters I want to keep. So, by clean I mean removing all unnecessary parameters in the URL.
For example,
https://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw?si=someTrackingIdwould becomehttps://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw, buthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRwkeeps it's parameter, because it is necessary.I guess replicating the logic for deciding which parameters to keep is not trivial, so the easiest solution is probably just manually pasting links into firefox, and just copying them cleanly from there. Thanks for providing some code, though!
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You never define "clean".
To strip excess URL parameters (i.e. beginning "&", almost certainly junk) if the clipboard buffer contains a URL and only a URL (Wayland only):
if url=$(printf '%s' "$(wl-paste --no-newline | awk '$1=$1' ORS=' ')" | egrep -o 'https?://[^ ]+') ; then wl-copy "${url%%\&*}" fiI think it really depends on the website and even where you are on the website. For example, if you're on YT, the
watch?v=<b64_id>is probably not something you want to throw away. If you're on a news site likeimaginarynews.com/.../the-article-title/?tracking-garbage=<...>then you probably do. -
It's never worked for me either. The ClearURLs addon has a function to copy a clean URL and that works great though. It's open source, so maybe someone could turn its cleaning function into a program that could be used for the clipboard.
Hmm. Thanks, though I'm seeking universal /offline so if I get URLs in other platforms, I won't have to turn to the browser to purge them of junk. Or maybe this could be converted into a standalone program...
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Fair enough, I haven't given that too much thought myself until now. After playing around with Firefox's URL cleaning, I realized there are some parameters I want to keep. So, by clean I mean removing all unnecessary parameters in the URL.
For example,
https://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw?si=someTrackingIdwould becomehttps://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw, buthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRwkeeps it's parameter, because it is necessary.I guess replicating the logic for deciding which parameters to keep is not trivial, so the easiest solution is probably just manually pasting links into firefox, and just copying them cleanly from there. Thanks for providing some code, though!
There is no logic as to which parameters is useful and which is used for tracking. But there are databases.
Here is the one for the CleanURLs extension and here is the one for the AdGuard URL Tracking filter list (which I recommend everyone should enable in uBlock Origin).
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There is no logic as to which parameters is useful and which is used for tracking. But there are databases.
Here is the one for the CleanURLs extension and here is the one for the AdGuard URL Tracking filter list (which I recommend everyone should enable in uBlock Origin).
Oh, nice! That's definitely valuable info. Personally, I do think it's too much work to implement that properly, though.
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I think it really depends on the website and even where you are on the website. For example, if you're on YT, the
watch?v=<b64_id>is probably not something you want to throw away. If you're on a news site likeimaginarynews.com/.../the-article-title/?tracking-garbage=<...>then you probably do.Sure, but my script only gets rid of the second and later parameters, i.e. ones with
¬?. Personally I don't think I've ever seen a single site where an¶m is critical. These days there few where the?matters either, but yes YT is a holdout. -
That'd be cool. Whenever I'm sharing a YT link, I'm always a bit suspicious of what info the youtu.be URL is hiding, so I paste it into a browser to get a clean URL.
Maybe this is silly, but I'd be cool to do that automatically.
Well for youtube it's quite easy, there are only 4 useful parameters that I can think of, the video id
v, the playlist idlistandindexif it's a playlist and the timetif you're sending a specific time in the video. Everything else can be removed.
Here's what uBlock Origin with the AdGuard URL Tracking filter list:! Youtube $removeparam=embeds_referring_euri,domain=youtubekids.com|youtube-nocookie.com|youtube.com $removeparam=embeds_referring_origin,domain=youtubekids.com|youtube-nocookie.com|youtube.com $removeparam=source_ve_path,domain=youtubekids.com|youtube-nocookie.com|youtube.com ||youtube.com^$removeparam=pp -
Sure, but my script only gets rid of the second and later parameters, i.e. ones with
¬?. Personally I don't think I've ever seen a single site where an¶m is critical. These days there few where the?matters either, but yes YT is a holdout.There are plenty of sites that use more than one parameters. It's true that a lot of sites now use the history API instead of url parameters but you can still find plenty, and you have no garante about the parameters order.
Any site with a search page that have a few options will probably use url parameters instead of the history API. It's easier to parse and will end up being shorter most of the time. -
Oh, nice! That's definitely valuable info. Personally, I do think it's too much work to implement that properly, though.
There are some examples of projects that use CleanURLs db in its readme but most have not been updated for a long time.
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There are plenty of sites that use more than one parameters. It's true that a lot of sites now use the history API instead of url parameters but you can still find plenty, and you have no garante about the parameters order.
Any site with a search page that have a few options will probably use url parameters instead of the history API. It's easier to parse and will end up being shorter most of the time.Search results, sure. Personally I have rarely if ever wanted to save or share such URLs. But sure.
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I know firefox has the very useful "Copy clean Link" option in the context menu, but I would like a similar feature for copying links from any other software, like spotify for example. So I am looking for some software that hooks into the clipboard pipeline, and cleans any URL that gets added. I tried googling for something like it, but was completely unsuccessful. Does anyone have a clue how I might go about achieving this?
Thanks in advance
The problem is, how do you distinguish url parameters that are essential from url parameters thats used to track?
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Query parameters are junk? They have tons of legitimate uses, they’re one of the better places to keep state.
As a WebDev... URL parameters are definitely not the place to keep state... Were not in the 00's anymore. They do have legit uses, but we have JS localStorage nowadays.
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Alternatively you can configure a hotkey in the GNOME Settings, or the equivalent for other DEs, to execute a bash script or anything.
