I received a sketchy email today. As I briefly scanned it, I noticed that the email included a TinyURL, and I thought: It would be nice if Outlook could resolve that URL, so I had a better idea where it resolved (without the need to use the URL). That took me out to find such a service. Not for Outlook, so much, but you know, a service that could complete this URL resolution. After I had tested that GetLinkInfo.com gave me what I wanted, I chose to use it’s URL inside a PowerShell function, and so here we are.

I’m not spending much time on this post, but the following function will open the website in your browser, so you can see the URL resolution information. If you include the OpenSite parameter, the function will even open a browser window to the resolved site itself. You might use that one with caution. At current, this function will require you leave PowerShell to see the function’s results, since it was designed to open a web browser window, or windows, depending on how you use it. Perhaps in time I’ll come back around and change that one day.

Function Get-TinyUrlLinkInfo {
<#
.SYNOPSIS
    This function relies on GetLinkInfo.com to determine the redirection of a TinyUrl URL without the need to visit the URL.

.DESCRIPTION
    This function relies on GetLinkInfo.com to determine the redirection of a TinyUrl URL without the need to visit the URL. If GetLinkInfo.com changes how they form their URLs, then this function may no work without some code edits.

.PARAMETER Url
    This parameter name is mandatory and requires a valid URL, such as http://tinyurl.com/ol499jx.com, be provided as the parameter value.

.EXAMPLE
    PS > Get-TinyUrlLinkInfo -Url 'http://tinyurl.com/ol499jx'.
    This example will open a web browser to GetLinkInfo.com and indicate that the TinyUrl resolves to the PowerShell Gallery.

.EXAMPLE
    PS > Get-TinyUrlLinkInfo -Url 'http://tinyurl.com/ol499jx' -OpenSite
    This example will open a web browser to GetLinkInfo.com and indicate that the TinyUrl resolves to the PowerShell Gallery. It will also open the resolved link in a browser. It's not recommend to include this parameter until after the redirected site is considered safe and trusted. Use this parameter with caution.

.NOTES
    Name: Get-TinyUrlLinkInfo
    Author: Tommy Maynard
    Comments: -
    LASTEDIT: 10/31/2016
#>
    [CmdletBinding()]
    Param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
        [string]$Url,

        [switch]$OpenSite
    )

    Begin {
    } # End Begin.

    Process {
        # Check link against GetLinkInfo.com.
        [void][Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Web")
        $ConvertedUrl = [System.Web.HttpUtility]::UrlEncode($Url)
        Start-Process -FilePath "http://www.getlinkinfo.com/info?link=$ConvertedUrl&x=81&y=8"

        # Open resolved URL.
        If ($OpenSite) {
            Start-Process -FilePath $Url
        }
    } # End Process.

    End {
    } # End End.
} # End Function: Get-TinyUrlLinkInfo.