Expiring Link: What it is & How it Works | Clickly (2024)

If you’re trying to share something online but don’t want to to create a permanent link, then creating an expiring link is the best solution. This article will describe what expiring links are, how they work, use cases, and how to create temporary links yourself.

What is an Expiring Link?

An expiring link, also known as a temporary link or self-destructing link, is a URL that is valid for a limited time period.

Once the specified expiration time elapses, the link becomes inactive and inaccessible, preventing further access to the shared content.

This time-limited access adds an extra layer of security and control to the shared information, reducing the risk of unauthorized access or exposure.

How Do Expiring Links Work?

Expiring links operate on the principle of time-based access control.

When creating an expiring link, the user specifies a duration for which the link will remain active, typically ranging from minutes to hours or days.

Once the link is generated and shared, anyone with access to the link can view or download the associated content within the specified timeframe.

After the expiration time passes, the link automatically becomes invalid, rendering the shared content inaccessible.

Expiring Link Use Cases

Sharing confidential or time-sensitive content is made much easier with expiring URLs. But what are some scenarios where expiring links come in handy? Here are some common use cases:

Sharing Files Online

Expiring links are commonly used for sharing files online, such as confidential reports, financial statements, unreleased images, or personal documents.

Instead of sending files via email, expiring links can be used to send downloadable CSV files, PDF files, and just about any other file type.

Expiring links work to provide limited access to files on hosting platforms without worrying about unintended visitors.

Providing Temporary Access

Another use case is for temporary download links. These links are great for providing temporary access to products, services, digital downloads, or any content online.

Software companies, college professors, and content creators commonly use expiring links to grant temporary access to something without it indexing permanently.

Event Invitations and RSVPs

Event organizers often utilize expiring links to distribute invitations or access passes to virtual events, webinars, or online courses.

By setting an expiration time on the event links, organizers can control attendee access and ensure that only registered participants can join within the specified timeframe.

Secure Messaging

In sensitive communications, such as exchanging personal or confidential information via email or messaging platforms, expiring links can add an extra layer of security.

By sharing expiring links to encrypted messages or files, users can mitigate the risk of unauthorized access or interception of sensitive data.

How to Create an Expiring Link

Clickly makes it easy to create temporary URLs for just about any purpose. Here’s how:

  1. Go to the link tool in your Clickly dashboard.
  2. Copy the URL of the web page, file, or content and paste it into the field.
  3. Click ‘Customize‘ then click ‘Expiration‘.
  4. Enter your desired expiration conditions, then click ‘Shorten‘ to create your expiring link.
Expiring Link: What it is & How it Works | Clickly (2024)

FAQs

Expiring Link: What it is & How it Works | Clickly? ›

Expiring links are links that have an associated date & time after which they cease to redirect. They can either redirect to a different destination after the expiry date, or alternatively just return a “not found” error.

What happens when a link expires? ›

An expiring link, also called signed URL, is a link to a file or object that is limited in time. Once it expires, the link is no longer valid.

How do I access an expired drive link? ›

What you can do is to reach out to the owner of the files or the one who gave you the link to identify what happened to the photos and have them shared again with you. These are the possible scenarios on why you can't access the photos: The owner of the photos restricted access through link.

Why does it say link has expired? ›

What Causes “The Link You Followed Has Expired” Error? The The link you followed has expired error often shows up after you upload a theme or plugin that exceeds the file size upload limit. Hosting providers usually have upload size and execution time limits in their PHP settings to improve server performance.

How to make a link expire for free? ›

To create a temporary URL, you can use a URL-shortening service like Replug. Simply sign in or create an account, paste the long URL you want to shorten, set the expiry date and time, customize the link if desired, and save it.

How do I open a link that has expired? ›

No one can open a link once it has expired. That includes the sender, too.

What is the average lifespan of a link? ›

As noted above, 69.8% of links disappear within a day. Within two days, 79.6% of links were gone, 84.6% were gone in three days, 87.6% in four days, 89.5% in five days, 90.9% in six days and 92.1% lasted less than a week.

How long does a Drive link last? ›

Links to Google Docs and Google Drive files do not have a set expiration date, but the owner of the file can choose to remove the link at any time.

How can I tell who visited my Drive link? ›

1. File Activity Log. If you've shared your Google Drive file with specific people or groups, you can see who has viewed it by going to the file's "Details" tab. This option is available for Google Workspace subscribers with an enterprise, business, education, or nonprofit plan.

Can anyone access a Drive link? ›

These options depend on if your Google Account is through work, school, or Gmail. Public: Anyone can search on Google and get access to your file, without signing in to their Google Account. Anyone with the link: Anyone who has the link can use your file, without signing in to their Google Account.

How do I make a link not expire? ›

- Hover over the file and click on the "Share" button. - In the sharing settings, click on "Create a link." - Once the link is created, click on "Settings" or the gear icon next to the link. - Under "Link settings," select "No expiration" to allow the link to never expire.

How do I send a link that expires? ›

Create Expiring Links
  1. Sign in/sign up to Linkly. Linkly offers a free plan with all features included.
  2. Click 'Create New Link' from the left hand menu.
  3. Enter a Destination for the link at the top. ...
  4. Under Options, select Expiry date & time.
  5. Finally, click 'Save Link'.

What does it mean when a URL expires? ›

When a domain expires it becomes inactive immediately and all the services attached to it cease to function. You can't make any updates to the domain while it is expired. The domain will remain available for reactivation at your regular domain rate under your list of Expired Domains.

What is the meaning this link has expired? ›

An expiring link, also called signed URL, is a link to a file or object that is limited in time. Once it expires, the link is no longer valid. This has to advantage that the link cannot be used on another site since it expires in any given time by the rightful owner of the link.

Why do some links expire? ›

Setting and expiration for shared links is a security measure during a web-based file-transfer Online file-sharing platforms have implemented these measures as a way to comply with data privacy standards.

How do I make a link valid? ›

To be a valid link it must have:
  1. A href attribute: The location of the anchor, page or resource.
  2. Link content Text describing where the link is going, this could be plain text or the alt attribute of an image.
  3. Opening and closing tags.
Feb 15, 2019

What happens when you click a dead link? ›

Broken links, also known as dead links, lead to a page that no longer exists. Instead of seeing the content they want, the user who clicks on the link is typically redirected to an error page, such as 404 (Not Found) or 500 (Internal Server Error), creating an annoying UX.

What happens when a link fails? ›

When a link fails, packets cannot be transported. This also means that established routes to destinations may become unavailable. In such cases, the routing protocol must recompute an alternate path around the failure.

How long does a URL expire? ›

Urls do not have a shelf life like a can of peaches. As long as an url is on a page of a website that is active, still being hosted, the link is active. Now you could technically say an url on an actively hosted website that points to a non-existent web page has expired. Most of us call this a broken link.

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