What is the maximum length of a URL in different browsers?

Question

• What is the maximum length of a URL for each browser?
• Is a maximum URL length part of the HTTP specification?

Last

FWIW, for Windows users, server paths exceeding 250 characters may cause grief when building URLs, for example, see HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath fails for long file names at forums.asp.net. bottom line: if one restriction does not get you, another one may. – Pichardo

@gerryLowry: Windows tools already tend to have problems even compiling with long file names, so this usually isn't a concern if you only use MapPath for actual file names. One hopes that the extra-long url names are not paired with extra-long file paths, since the latter results in an unusable mess whereas the former may just be a developer abusing get requests where he should be using post requests. – Dalliance

From support.microsoft.com/kb/208427 "Maximum URL length is 2,083 characters in Internet Explorer" – Titi

Related ServerFault question about Tomcat: serverfault.com/questions/56691/… – Handgun

Related ServerFault question about Jetty: serverfault.com/questions/136249/… – Handgun

@Lohoris: If a form uses get rather than post, then bookmarking the page reached by the filled-in form will capture the information that was entered. In some cases, that can be bad, but in other cases it can be useful. For that to work, however, the browser has to be able to handle a URL containing all the information. – Sanskritic

@Lohoris When we write pages to generate reports we used a criteria form. It is useful on some reports to be able to email the url to someone with the criteria built in. Depending on the report we are at times forced to use post or the criteria gets truncated. Just another use case. – Prolate

It worth noting that except not all HTTP request to a web server are done via a web browser, so you can hit limits of the socket api or the web server restrictions, that also not all URL changes trigger an HTTP request (e.g. history push or hash change). So what really happens when you append 100k characters to the window.location.href and then try to use it in the JS engine as a value? Last time I did something closer to that, received way less characters in the href property that should have been appended (speaking about Chrome now). – Josephson

Answer 1

Short answer - de facto limit of 2000 characters

If you keep URLs under 2000 characters, they'll work in virtually any combination of client and server software, and any search engine.

For specific use cases, longer URLs can be considered. Outside of seaarch engines, 8000 characters offers wide compatibility as of 2023. Read on for all the details...

Longer answer - first, the standards...

The original HTTP/1.1 specification, published in 1999, RFC 2616, said in section 3.2.1:

The HTTP protocol does not place any a priori limit on the length of a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle the URI of any resource they serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbounded length if they provide GET-based forms that could generate such URIs. A server SHOULD return 414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a URI is longer than the server can handle (see section 10.4.15).

In 2014, this was obsoleted by an updated specification largely to match actual usage, RFC 7230; it suggests:

Various ad hoc limitations on request-line length are found in practice. It is RECOMMENDED that all HTTP senders and recipients support, at a minimum, request-line lengths of 8000 octets.

In 2022, a new update was published, defining HTTP semantics independently of HTTP version (HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, HTTP/3). RFC 9110, section 4.1, says:

It is RECOMMENDED that all senders and recipients support, at a minimum, URIs with lengths of 8000 octets in protocol elements. Note that this implies some structures and on-wire representations (for example, the request line in HTTP/1.1) will necessarily be larger in some cases.

...and the reality

That's what the standards say. For the reality, there was an article on boutell.com (link goes to Internet Archive backup) that discussed what individual browser and server implementations will support. The executive summary is:

Extremely long URLs are usually a mistake. URLs over 2,000 characters will not work in the most popular web browsers. Don't use them if you intend your site to work for the majority of Internet users.

(Note: this is a quote from an article written in 2006, but in 2015 IE's declining usage means that longer URLs do work for the majority. However, IE still has the limitation...)

Internet Explorer's limitations...

IE8's maximum URL length is 2083 chars, and it seems IE9 has a similar limit.

I've tested IE10 and the address bar will only accept 2083 chars. You can click a URL which is longer than this, but the address bar will still only show 2083 characters of this link.

There's a nice writeup on the IE Internals blog which goes into some of the background to this.

There are mixed reports IE11 supports longer URLs - see comments below. Given some people report issues, the general advice still stands.

Search engines like URLs < 2048 chars...

Be aware that the sitemaps protocol, which allows a site to inform search engines about available pages, has a limit of 2048 characters in a URL. If you intend to use sitemaps, a limit has been decided for you! (see Calin-Andrei Burloiu's answer below)

There's also some research from 2010 into the maximum URL length that search engines will crawl and index. They found the limit was 2047 chars, which appears allied to the sitemap protocol spec. However, they also found the Google SERP tool wouldn't cope with URLs longer than 1855 chars.

CDNs have limits

CDNs also impose limits on URI length, and will return a 414 Too long request when these limits are reached, for example:

• Fastly 8Kb
• CloudFront 8Kb
• CloudFlare 32Kb

(credit to timrs2998 for providing that info in the comments)

Additional browser roundup

I tested the following against an Apache 2.4 server configured with a very large LimitRequestLine and LimitRequestFieldSize.

Browser     Address bar   document.location
                          or anchor tag
------------------------------------------
Chrome          32779           >64k
Android          8192           >64k
Firefox          >300k          >300k
Safari           >64k           >64k
IE11             2047           5120
Edge 16          2047          10240

See also this answer from Matas Vaitkevicius below.

Is this information up to date?

This is a popular question, and as the original research is ~14 years old I'll try to keep it up to date: As of Sep 2023, the advice still stands. While modern browsers will support longer URLs, search engines do not so the headline figure remains "under 2000 chars"

Ammamaria

Note that IE11 won't bookmark URLs longer than 260 characters. I'm unsure if Edge has the same limitation. – Dalliance

Today IE11 cuts my URL to 2048 chars. – Ranie

in Chrome in 2016 I've been able to open a url with 260300 ascii chars using the osx open command from a simple script, and could confirm that all the characters were passed through to the server. The url in the browser gets truncated to 32791 characters, concludinding with ... (%E2%80%A6%E2%80%A6) – Estrone

I'm noticing long URLs not work in a web app I am working on. Still debugging but I know it breaks at 4,000 character so I'm assuming Edge 38 has the same limitations as IE11's 2048? – Zared

@Paul Dixon It's really nice to see people that are willing to go above and beyond in answering questions on this site. Obviously people are showing their gratitude with the current upvote count being 3734, but I wanted to say thanks! :) – Maximinamaximize

Is GET parameters included in this 2000 limit of URL? – Haydeehayden

@Haydeehayden yes they are – Ammamaria

Is this true for modern browsers? #46630400 – Jaan

Is the limit inclusive of the length of the URL fragments? IOW, does this answer speak only about the part of the URL before the '#' or does it speak of the total length of the URL (inclusive of the part before the '#', the '#' and the part after the '#')? – Shirl

As of Jan 2018, IE 11 shrinks URLs, replaced by window.location to the 4095 characters. – Glutton

IE11: max-length for anchor: 5120 bytes, max-length for address-bar: 2047, max-length for copying to address-bar: 2083 – Kutuzov

is a space (%20) considered as one character or 3 characters? – Sox

Popular answer indeed... Google figures this post is the authority, based on the snippet provided before search results when searching for "maximum url length". :) – Erick

Googler Hohn Mueller said: "As far as I know, there's no theoretical length limit, but we recommend keeping URLs shorter than 2000 characters to keep things manageable." here productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/dPxWiO-cRnM/… – Hifalutin

It appears that IE11 and MS Edge 42 (Win10) both allow large urls if you redirect to them.... You can't edit them in the browser (if you type in the address bar, it'll limit you), but you can redirect to large urls (at least 3.5k) – Primaveras

Also, if you want to test an url that's 4032 chars in total length via redirect, just go tinyurl.com/ezbigurl11 and it'll redirect you to httpbin.org, with a dump of the request that was just made to that server. – Primaveras

I'm noticing that on Chrome, mailto: links longer than 2048 characters fail. On Firefox I seem to be able to go up to just over 32K. – Argon

This is a really good answer and I'd like to add to this. Even if you forget about Internet Explorer and sitemaps, CDNs also impose limits on URI length. Most CDNs suppor the minimum required request-line lengths of 8000 octets and return 414 Too long request when reached. Fastly 8kb, CloudFront: 8,192 bytes, Cloudflare 32KB – Sphacelus

Mentioning any version of IE in 2020 update is ... strange. – Populace

@PaulDixon As of Jan 2019 Microsoft switched their rendering engine to Blink. Could this warrant another limitation check? Edge is now at version 83 – Cronyism

@Marvin yes! I'm astonished this is now 11 years old - I think it's time to review all the information presented, but I believe the core advice still stands. – Ammamaria

@PetrNagy Sadly, in corporate environments, IE11 is still quite frequent. – Resultant

Does this only pertain to URLs visited directly (e.g. the address bar) or does it also apply to XMLHttpRequests? (and fetch?) – Danie

Is this answer correct? The safest limit is 255 chars based on this. #2660452 – Pyromancy

Cloudflare URL is limited to 16KB: developers.cloudflare.com/workers/platform/limits – Pincus

needs updated, on June 2022 There is no Support for IE11 through microsoft, into 2023 IE should not be the barometer for anything. Chrome: 66% marketshare Safari: 18% marketshare Firefox: 4% marketshare Android: 1% marketshare Other: less than 10% marketshare The standard should be 32,000 characters based on Chromes limit of 32k, and cloudflares limit of . At least 95% of Browsers have a limit of at least 32,000 or greater. The other 5% ofter very old unsupported browsers. all modern browsers support 32,000 characters. You don't want unsafe browsers on your web application anyway. – Abingdon

Very interesting thank you! Can someone comment on the Chrome limit of 2MB mentioned in this Chromium Guideline page? – Domitian

What about client-side, only? I have URLs that are mangled in the server, but since the contained data is decided in the browser they still work. What about storing data (such as puzzle progress) in the hash part of the URL? – Terrel

What about the src tag of an img element included in the page? Will the same limits as an anchor element's href be applied? – Dierdre

Made a website capable of reading extremely long urls: serveurl.loltek.net (it wasn't easy, encountered a hardcoded limitation in nginx trac.nginx.org/test/ticket/239 and discovered a bug in php-fpm github.com/php/php-src/issues/12982 and wrote a custom FastCGI server in C++ along the way~) – Charitycharivari

Answer 2

The longest URLs I came across are data URLs

Example image URL from Google image results (11747 characters)

data:image/jpeg;base64,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

Gringo

He's talking about the fact that a base64 encoded jpeg is technically a URL, because it's specified as data:*. While he's correct in stating that it is a valid URL, I don't think that's what the question was asking. – Cb

... or just paste it in your address bar. – Foggy

Because a data URL contains the protocol "data:", and the identifier, it's everything you need to LOCATE that "file" (even if the "Filesystem" is the space of all possible files). It is therefore a URL, which is also a URI. (But definitely not "not a URL") – Snooze

@DoubleGras Google Chrome for Mac does not allow me to paste a URL that long into my address bar – Poplin

Thanks for the info. I've just tested it successfully on Firefox and Chrome, Windows. So… it simply depends ;) – Foggy

Hmm. This could be considered an answer, but it seems fairly clear that the OP was asking about URLs using the http or https scheme... – Domicile

The Chrome extension "Webpage screenshot" previews the screenshot as a data URI. A page 32708 pixels high (1263 wide) became a PNG 8,749,309 bytes (8.34 MiB) in length. In base64, that's 11,665,748 characters. Add in the data:image/png;base64,, and you get a 11,665,770 character long data URI. – Janiuszck

I cannot even paste this in current Chrome. – Infuriate

A few firefox versions ago I generated a 2MB URI image. You could display it on a page, but pasting it to the address field\opening in a new tab, resulted in a crash every time I tried. – Thiazine

Applause for the "Is this information up to date?" section! I have never seen this before, but this is crucial in fast-moving tech. – Protoxide

2021.02: The image url in this answer does work in Chrome 88 on Mac – Shingles

Answer 3

I wrote this test that keeps on adding 'a' to parameter until the browser fails

C# part:

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
public ActionResult ParamTest(string x)
{
    ViewBag.TestLength = 0;
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(x))
    {
        System.IO.File.WriteAllLines("c:/result.txt",
                       new[] {Request.UserAgent, x.Length.ToString()});
        ViewBag.TestLength = x.Length + 1;
    }

    return View();
}

View:

<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
    $(function() {
        var text = "a";
        for (var i = 0; i < parseInt(@ViewBag.TestLength)-1; i++) {
            text += "a";
        }

        document.location.href = "http://localhost:50766/Home/ParamTest?x=" + text;
    });
</script>

PART 1

On Chrome I got:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.130 Safari/537.36
2046

It then blew up with:

HTTP Error 404.15 - Not Found The request filtering module is configured to deny a request where the query string is too long.

Same on Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E)
2046

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0
2046

PART 2

I went easy mode and added additional limits to IISExpress applicationhost.config and web.config setting maxQueryStringLength="32768".

Chrome failed with message 'Bad Request - Request Too Long

HTTP Error 400. The size of the request headers is too long.

after 7744 characters.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.130 Safari/537.36
7744

PART 3

Added

<headerLimits>
    <add header="Content-type" sizeLimit="32768" />
</headerLimits>

which didn't help at all. I finally decided to use fiddler to remove the referrer from header.

static function OnBeforeRequest(oSession: Session) {
    if (oSession.url.Contains("localhost:50766")) {
        oSession.RequestHeaders.Remove("Referer");
    }

Which did nicely.

Chrome: got to 15613 characters. (I guess it's a 16K limit for IIS)

And it failed again with:

<BODY><h2>Bad Request - Request Too Long</h2>
<hr><p>HTTP Error 400. The size of the request headers is too long.</p>


Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.130 Safari/537.36
15613

Firefox:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0
15708

Internet Explorer 8 failed with iexplore.exe crashing.

After 2505

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E)
2505

Android Emulator

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 5.1; Android SDK built for x86 Build/LKY45) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/39.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36
7377

Internet Explorer 11

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/7.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C)
4043

Internet Explorer 10

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/6.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C)
4043

Internet Explorer 9

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0)
4043

Cosenza

So, in effect, my assumption of 512 chars is largely wrong ^_^ Thanks for the test. I will never care about the query param length anymore.. – Khasi

This should be the accepted answer... the first one doesn't actually provide hard limits for each browser which is what the questions asks for. – Picrate

Might be worth looking into Safari too. Safari is the only browser that does not support client-generated downloads. The workarounds are: a) open a BLOB URI (a short, temporary URI that points to an in-memory Blob) in a new window, b) open a base-64 encoded data URI in a new window (may be very long, but supports mime typing). Details here: github.com/eligrey/FileSaver.js/issues/12 – Excellent

@Vaitkevicius do u know if a space(%20) is counted as one character or 3? – Sox

@Sox depends where... press F12 and paste following into the console console.log("%20".length +" "+decodeURI("%20").length) this should explain it – Cosenza

+1 for the thorough examination and the extra length you went show how more symbols can be squeezed from some browsers. Though this might not give most developers any practical benefits, the effort is remarkable, and it is good to know some real numbers in this context – Wrasse

Answer 4

WWW FAQs: What is the maximum length of a URL? has its own answer based on empirical testing and research. The short answer is that going over 2048 characters makes Internet Explorer unhappy and thus this is the limit you should use. See the page for a long answer.

Dalliance

Answer 5

On Apple platforms (iOS/macOS/tvOS/watchOS), the limit may be a 2 GB long URL scheme, as seen by this comment in the source code of Swift:

// Make sure the URL string isn't too long.
// We're limiting it to 2GB for backwards compatibility with 32-bit executables using NS/CFURL
if ( (urlStringLength > 0) && (urlStringLength <= INT_MAX) )
{
...

---

On iOS, I've tested and confirmed that even a 300+ MB long URL is accepted. You can try such a long URL like this in Objective-C:

NSString *path = [@"a:" stringByPaddingToLength:314572800 withString:@"a" startingAtIndex:0];
NSString *js = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"window.location.href = \"%@\";", path];
[self.webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:js];

And catch if it succeed with:

- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType
{
    NSLog(@"length: %@", @(request.URL.absoluteString.length));
    return YES;
}

Unfounded

You sir deserve a +1 just for the effort of trying a 300MB URL – Yeaton

iOS isn't a browser in and of itself. Was this in Safari for iOS? – Cato

@Cato schemes are handled by the OS and then dispatched to the app that can open them. So all apps on iOS, including Safari, can handle long URI. – Boart

Thanks for the clarification. Presumably, though, this doesn't prevent an arbitrary app (say, eg, a Tor-powered browser) from introducing its own length restriction, correct? – Cato

@Дамян Станчев If you go down to the protocol level, the path field might as well contain your entire drive's content. So in practice, the limit is imposed by the server. – Chelseachelsey

Answer 6

There is really no universal maximum URL length. The max length is determined only by what the client browser chooses to support, which varies widely. The 2,083 limit is only present in Internet Explorer (all versions up to 7.0). The max length in Firefox and Safari seems to be unlimited, although instability occurs with URLs reaching around 65,000 characters. Opera seems to have no max URL length whatsoever, and doesn't suffer instability at extremely long lengths.

Conventional

If the instability is around 65k it is probably right there near 65535 (2^16 - 1). Maybe they loop through chars using short i? Just a thought. I wonder what URL they tested for 65k+ o_o;; – Diecious

This answers is maybe the one that should be accepted, as it provides the concrete answers: 2k for IE, 65k for Safari/Firefox, "more" for Opera. – Kink

I'm curious. Is the 65k URL a data scheme URI or really a URL in the classic sense? – Rubin

I'd guess the instability is/was caused by API used to render the address bar. Many OS libraries cannot cope with overly long strings to be rendered on display with acceptable performance. – Morass

Answer 7

The URI RFC (of which URLs are a subset) doesn't define a maximum length, however, it does recommend that the hostname part of the URI (if applicable) not exceed 255 characters in length:

URI producers should use names that conform to the DNS syntax, even when use of DNS is not immediately apparent, and should limit these names to no more than 255 characters in length.

As noted in other posts though, some browsers have a practical limitation on the length of a URL.

Coombs

Answer 8

The HTTP 1.1 specification says:

URIs in HTTP can be represented in absolute form or relative to some
known base URI [11], depending upon the context of their use. The two
forms are differentiated by the fact that absolute URIs always begin
with a scheme name followed by a colon. For definitive information on
URL syntax and semantics, see "Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax and Semantics," RFC 2396 [42] (which replaces RFCs 1738 [4] and RFC 1808 [11]). This specification adopts the definitions of "URI-reference", "absoluteURI", "relativeURI", "port",
"host","abs_path", "rel_path", and "authority" from that
specification.

The HTTP protocol does not place any a priori limit on the length of
a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle the URI of any resource they serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbounded length if they provide GET-based forms that could generate such URIs.* A server SHOULD return 414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a URI is longer than the server can handle (see section 10.4.15).

Note: Servers ought to be cautious about depending on URI lengths above 255 bytes, because some older client or proxy implementations might not properly support these lengths.

As mentioned by @Brian, the HTTP clients (e.g. browsers) may have their own limits, and HTTP servers will have different limits.

Definite

Answer 9

Microsoft Support says "Maximum URL length is 2,083 characters in Internet Explorer".

IE has problems with URLs longer than that. Firefox seems to work fine with >4k chars.

Cesaria

Answer 10

In URL as UI Jakob Nielsen recommends:

the social interface to the Web relies on email when users want to recommend Web pages to each other, and email is the second-most common way users get to new sites (search engines being the most common): make sure that all URLs on your site are less than 78 characters long so that they will not wrap across a line feed.

This is not the maximum but I'd consider this a practical maximum if you want your URL to be shared.

Bixler

I wonder where "78" comes from? Maybe that original 1999 article was written under the assumption that people are reading their email in 80x24 terminal windows? Still, good advice! – Marciamarciano

Well. IBM punch cards were also 80 columns. With two characters taken up by a carriage return and a line feed you get 78. – Bixler

Haha. :-) I was actually considering referencing 1981-era 80x25 CGA monitors in my comment, but you reached even further back! ...I wasn't around for the punch card era, but were they 80 bytes across, or only 80 bits? – Marciamarciano

Not exactly a byte (8 bits). It encoded one character in each column. – Bixler

@JonSchneider - 78 is quite specific, and may relate to readability of text (from a usability perspective given Nielsen's background), which is best between 50-60, and a maximum of 75. – Bealle

78 comes from RFC 2822 section 2.1.1 Line Length Limits "Each line of characters MUST be no more than 998 characters, and SHOULD be no more than 78 characters, excluding the CRLF." – Luellaluelle

Answer 11

Sitemaps protocol, which is a way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites (also used by Google in Webmaster Tools), supports URLs with less than 2048 characters. So if you are planning to use this feature for Search Engine Optimization, take this into account.

Umbelliferous

This is a little confusing. Sitemap protocols "supports URLs with less than 2048 characters." I imagined a site like example.com would work. I think this question is more about the maximum? – Winkler

Answer 12

ASP.NET 2 and SQL Server reporting services 2005 have a limit of 2028. I found this out the hard way, where my dynamic URL generator would not pass over some parameters to a report beyond that point. This was under Internet Explorer 8.

Actino

Answer 13

Why is the Internet Explorer limit only 2K while IIS has a limit of 16K? I don't think it makes sense.

So I want to start an experiment about Ajax request URL size limits.

I have set my Tomcat HTTP connector's maxHttpHeaderSize="1048576". And prepared a very long URL.

Then I send a request with the long URL like the following:

var url="/ajax/url-length.jsp";
jQuery.ajax(url,{data:{q:"0".repeat(1048000-url.length-4)}});

jQuery reports done. Tomcat reports the URL requested is 1048015 bytes. It was tested with Chrome 50 and Internet Explorer 11.

So web browsers won't truncate or limit your URL intentionally when sending Ajax requests.

Autoradiograph

The variation between Internet Explorer and IIS makes sense when you consider that not all requests to a web server are done via a browser. – Analiese

Answer 14

Limit request line directive sets the maximum length of a URL. By default, it is set to 8190, which gives you a lot of room. However other servers and some browses, limit the length more.

Because all parameters are passed on the URL line, items that were in password of hidden fields will also be displayed in the URL of course. Neither mobile should be used for real security measures and should be considered cosmetic security at best.

Dietsche

Answer 15

It seems that Chrome at least has raised this limit. I pasted 20,000 characters into the bookmarklet and it took it.

Guilder

Answer 16

I have experience with SharePoint 2007, 2010 and there is a limit of the length URL you can create from the server side in this case SharePoint, so it depends mostly on, 1) the client (browser, version, and OS) and 2) the server technology, IIS, Apache, etc.

Custombuilt

Because SharePoint exposes web URLs as file paths, it runs into a separate limitation: the Windows file path length limit of 260 characters (or 248 characters when using an API). For more details about this limit, check out the "Maximum Path Length Limitation" section here: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247(VS.85).aspx – Interbreed

Answer 17

The official documentation specifies a maximum length of 2048 characters.

Maximum length of a URL in different browsers:

• Google Chrome - Google Chrome permits a maximum URL length of 2MB (2,097,152 characters).

• Mozilla Firefox - In Firefox, a URL can be as lengthy as it needs to be, but beyond 65,536 characters, the location bar no longer shows the URL.

• Edge: Edge permits a maximum URL length of 2083 characters, although the path portion of the URL cannot exceed 2048 characters.

• Opera: Opera permits an unlimited URL length.

• Safari: A page will display an error if the URL is longer than 80000 characters.

John Müeller advised that URLs should be a maximum of 1,000 characters in length, otherwise problems could arise.

For SEO purposes, use short and meaningful URLs for both the browser and the user as well..

Thank you...

Pharyngeal

I came to be asking this question as the result of an implementation based on generating a unique url into an email with potentially arbitrarily long text parameters coming from a db lookup, to pass the values into a form for auto-population purposes. You should not assume that everyone asking this question cares about SEO. – Haematoma

Answer 18

According to the HTTP spec, there is no limit to a URL's length. Keep your URLs under 2048 characters; this will ensure the URLs work in all clients & server configurations. Also, search engines like URLs to remain under approximately 2000 characters.

Brecher