LinkCleanhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&t=42s
LinkClean preserves this parameter — no change.
v
Region & language (preserved) · YouTube · functional — preserved
What does v= mean on a YouTube URL?
What v= is
Every YouTube video has an 11-character identifier built from base64-url characters (e.g. dQw4w9WgXcQ). On the www.youtube.com/watch URL, that ID lives in the v= query parameter; on the shortener form youtu.be/<id>, it's the path itself.
Strip v= from a youtube.com/watch URL and you land on YouTube's home page instead of the video. It's the only mandatory part of a YouTube video URL.
Why it's documented here
Because users sometimes ask. The naming confuses people — v= looks like a tracking parameter at first glance, but it's the most functional parameter on YouTube. LinkClean never strips it.
Frequently asked
Why are YouTube video IDs 11 characters long?
It's base64url over a fixed-width integer, designed to give YouTube a virtually inexhaustible namespace (~73 quintillion possible IDs) while staying short enough to type and share.
Is youtu.be/<id> the same as youtube.com/watch?v=<id>?
Yes — youtu.be is YouTube's URL shortener; the path after the slash IS the video ID, equivalent to v= on the longer form.
Does LinkClean ever touch v=?
Never. v= is the video ID — strip it and the URL doesn't resolve to a video.
Clean tracking on iPhone, in one tap.
LinkClean strips ~80 vendor-specific tracking parameters from any link, from any app's share sheet — and preserves functional ones like hl, t (YouTube timestamp), and q (search). No account, on-device.
