The trick is to add a “+” to the end of any TinyURL address in order to land on a safe TinyURL page that exposes what the initial link was that got shortened. If you want to click through to the location or not, you can then choose.
If you want to attempt this with a TinyURL, tinyurl.com/emkns9a8 will lead you to the page for the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp, however adding a “+” at the end of that TinyURL will take you to the page where you can see the initial link without clicking it.

Recently I wrote
The trick is to include “+” to the end of the Bitly URL to see whats behind it without clicking on it. A few people emailed me to ask if the that worked with other URL reducing services.
TinyURLs..

The trick is to include “+” to the end of the Bitly URL to see whats behind it without clicking on it. A couple of people emailed me to ask if the that worked with other URL shortening services. If you see it elsewhere, it has actually been used without consent.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. It has been used without approval if you see it in other places. Websites that regularly take my (Richard Byrnes) work consist of CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web.

Heres a video summary of how to see whats behind a TinyURL without actually clicking on the link.

Ive tried the “+” trick with a bunch of other URL shortening tools and TinyURL is the only one besides Bitly that Ive discovered it to work with..
Whats the trick?

Applications for EducationAs I wrote last week, constructing excellent digital citizenship and cyber safety skills is something that all of us ought to be assisting our trainees do. Revealing them little pointers like this one to prevent clicking suspicious links is one of the ways that we can assist our students build their digital citizenship and cyber security abilities.