Extract URLs
from raw text.
When a client sends you a massive email, document, or chat log filled with links scattered throughout, do not copy them one by one. Here is how to strip out the text and leave just the URLs.
- Input
- Any raw text or document
- Output
- Clean URL lists
- Cost
- Free tier available
Links buried in text
Extracting URLs from a webpage is easy because the HTML provides structure. But when links are dumped into a raw text document or email thread, there is no structure to rely on.
Manual copying errors
Highlighting URLs from a block of text often results in copying trailing commas, periods, or brackets, which breaks the link.
Regex is difficult
Writing a regular expression to extract URLs perfectly (handling http, https, bare domains, and query parameters) is notoriously difficult.
Hey team, here are the references: check out https://example.com/doc1 and also the backup at example.com/doc2. The old one is still live (http://test.org/old). Thanks!
The Text Extraction Workflow
To extract links from raw text, you need a parser that understands URL boundaries.
Copy the messy text
Select and copy the entire block of text, email thread, or document content to your clipboard.
Open the import tool
Open Link Extractor and navigate to the 'Manual Import' tab.
Paste and extract
Paste your text. The tool automatically detects all valid URLs, strips out the surrounding sentences, and presents a clean, copyable list.
Clean up messy links instantly
Install Link Extractor and use the manual import tool to pull URLs from any text blob.
Add to ChromeBest for
- Email chains and chat logs
- Customer support tickets with multiple references
- Messy copy-pasted document drafts
Not ideal for
- Preserving the anchor text (since raw text doesn't have HTML anchors)