UnmangleFacebookURL

Requirements

Python version 3.11+. It might work with earlier versions, however I didn't check.

Description

A small program for decrypting (unmangling) links shared on Facebook. It's simple to use. Open a terminal (or command line), enter the desired URL when prompted, copy the result.

A mangled URL generally has the following form:

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR02DxZKKFYZbmeWTolyTCxEPYEeaoA3Zexhc3UwZysKOIG1Yhp_lC36OT8&h=AT3Nx6gLcU9KeX1tx2FWJvJX_OhCwzh14wJTJJxJv3e4f95A9RbAprCMRCGccCVJuu4RYELwg3Haxw007ZeM_Eei9NL4Qssw-tAC8Yz8xYsRQSBhLIv_4oqp8YyCH1JaeO4JR8w8wBmy1pxmAim5FwDI_dY5iMeo2Pd3EfS35o03TYm-OFPlAB-kiM2Maam1GQZFlJLvb4xtUKz15fd6kUg7RkyeyThCyfqYUmasybsFTruHJUwhu2jQRx68gDkJatxUBzSoRewpWjw_4hv0NCQ51sw3gEBvjq32dtzsJDS1DinY__clbShirpLPuDUJnBr6rt0i4edmmNT1AvanOl3WohooGlduZNmzODymuKOGRbV_qgm0x5JIAcMTZkfkqbgnUr4OSIazSnbfqtfFct_9WI_OKQ9wBvFWR4sXhgT6BvBuspMsQU_wUcUb3v08qfNL9VbHPpeT6oYrqkXkH1jPanDk5Vly403TUBBGAobwObNYjcbDYDBT-EWTw03qGNBtNZxcDKHorvmKLMNmjCKiaEP69s7LGhcasHBjTDlWtt51Uq1CI5lubWiSE_Li8qFQu-MuBbNzMGzaDSGiFEJKmL6R1SL5fyKcIVP9tQ34-bCwUQE

The resulting URL will look something like this:

https://example.com

This program preservs the original URL parameters, such as fragments or query. The only change it does is to remove Facebook's added fbclid query parameter. Facebook uses it to track the URL's usage.