CleanorTools
URL

URL Parser

Details

How to use URL Parser

What the tool does, how to run it, and what to expect from the result.

How to parse a URL into its parts

Parsing a URL breaks it into the pieces a server actually sees: the scheme, the host, the port, the path, the query parameters, and the fragment. It is the fastest way to work out why a link is not behaving, especially when the query string is long and full of tracking parameters.

The parse uses the browser's own URL implementation, the same one that interprets every link you click, and it runs entirely locally. No request is made to the address you paste.

  • Paste a complete URL, including the scheme (https:// or http://), into the input box.
  • Read the breakdown: protocol, host, hostname, port, path, hash, and username.
  • Check the query parameter list, where each key and its decoded value appear on their own line.
  • Look for repeated parameter names, since a duplicate is a common cause of a server reading a different value than you expected.
  • Compare the normalised hostname against what you pasted, because case and internationalised characters are converted to the form DNS will actually resolve.
Tips

Getting a better result out of URL Parser

Specific settings and thresholds, not general advice.

  • Query parameters are decoded for you, and a plus sign in a value becomes a space here. That is the opposite of what the URL decoder does, and it is correct in both cases: URLSearchParams follows the form-encoding rules, where a plus means a space, while raw percent-decoding does not.
  • The parser needs a full URL with a scheme. Pasting example.com/path fails, because the WHATWG URL standard has no way to guess whether you meant http, https, or something else. Add https:// and it works.
  • The host is normalised. An uppercase hostname is lowercased, and an internationalised domain such as one with an accented letter is converted to its punycode xn-- form. If the parsed host does not match what you pasted, that normalisation is why, and it is what the browser would do too.
  • Repeated parameters are listed separately rather than merged. A query string with two id parameters shows both lines, which is exactly what you need when you are debugging why a server picked one value over the other, since different frameworks pick the first, the last, or make an array.
  • The port shows as (default) when the URL does not state one, because the URL standard omits port 443 for https and port 80 for http. A URL that explicitly writes https://example.com:443 will have that port stripped on normalisation.
Limits

What URL Parser does not do

The honest boundary, so you do not lose time finding it yourself.

  • It does not show the password portion of a URL, even when one is present, so it cannot be used to extract credentials from a connection string.
  • It requires a scheme, so bare hostnames and protocol-relative URLs beginning with two slashes will not parse.
  • It does not check whether the URL resolves or whether the host exists. This is a syntactic parse, not a request.
  • It does not group repeated parameters into arrays, nor does it parse structured values such as nested bracket notation used by some frameworks.
At a glance

Who URL Parser is for

A quick way to understand who this helps, what it solves, and where it connects next.

Best fit

Developers, data engineers, and anyone converting between data formats.

Ideal for

Quick URL to parts conversion without a backend or install.

FAQ

Common questions

Short answers for the questions people usually have before trying a utility like this.

Is the URL parser free?

Yes. It is completely free to use, with no signup, no account, and no paywall.

Do I need to install anything?

No. It runs in any modern browser on desktop or mobile, with nothing to download and nothing to configure.

Does it stay local?

Yes. The text you paste is processed entirely in your browser and never uploaded to a server.

Why does a plus in the query become a space here, but not in the URL decoder?

Because the two tools apply different, and correct, rules. This parser reads the query string with URLSearchParams, which implements the application/x-www-form-urlencoded rules, and in that format a plus sign means a space. The URL decoder reverses raw percent-encoding, where a plus is a literal plus character. Both behaviours are right for their context, and the discrepancy is a genuine source of bugs when a value containing a plus (such as an email address with a tagged local part) travels through both.

Why does it refuse my URL without https:// on the front?

Because a URL without a scheme is not a URL, it is a hostname. The WHATWG URL parser, which is what your browser uses to interpret every link, has no facility for guessing a scheme, and guessing would be a bad idea anyway given the difference between http and https. Prefix the string with https:// and it parses.

My hostname changed after parsing. Is that a bug?

No, it is normalisation, and your browser does exactly the same thing before making a request. Hostnames are case-insensitive, so they are lowercased. Internationalised domain names are converted to their ASCII punycode form, which begins with xn--, because that is what DNS actually resolves. Default ports are removed. Seeing the normalised form is often the point of parsing, since it shows you what will really be requested.

Can it show me the password in a URL like https://user:pass@host/?

It shows the username but not the password. URLs of that form appear in database connection strings and legacy API endpoints, and displaying the password in a tool output is an easy way for it to end up in a screenshot or a shared link. The username is enough to confirm you are looking at the right credential set without putting the secret on screen.

Does the tool fetch the URL?

No. It parses the string using the browser's built-in URL and URLSearchParams objects and makes no network request at all. Nothing is looked up, nothing is fetched, and the URL you paste, which may contain a session token or a signed parameter, is never transmitted.

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