289

I am trying to remove everything after the "?" in the browser url on document ready.

Here is what I am trying:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) {

var url = window.location.href;
    url = url.split('?')[0];
});

I can do this and see it the below works:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) {

var url = window.location.href;
    alert(url.split('?')[0]);
});
3
  • Have two forms on one page and when one form is submitted it adds a product to cart and appends a long parameter to the url after the page refreshes. So I want to be able to remove that parameter when the document is ready and it starts with a ? Commented Mar 31, 2014 at 3:16
  • 1
    If you want to refresh the page, why wait for .ready()? You don't need to wait in order to redirect to a new URL or just use .pushState() as Joraid recommended. Commented Mar 31, 2014 at 3:33
  • 3
    window.history.replaceState({}, document.title, window.location.pathname); Commented May 12, 2021 at 13:28

17 Answers 17

417

TL;DR

  1. To modify current URL and add / inject it (the new modified URL) as a new URL entry to history list, use pushState:

    window.history.pushState({}, document.title, "/" + "my-new-url.html");

  2. To replace current URL without adding it to history entries, use replaceState:

    window.history.replaceState({}, document.title, "/" + "my-new-url.html");

  3. Depending on your business logic, pushState will be useful in cases such as:

    • you want to support the browser's back button

    • you want to create a new URL, add/insert/push the new URL to history entries, and make it current URL

    • allowing users to bookmark the page with the same parameters (to show the same contents)

    • to programmatically access the data through the stateObj then parse from the anchor


As I understood from your comment, you want to clean your URL without redirecting again.

Note that you cannot change the whole URL. You can just change what comes after the domain's name. This means that you cannot change www.example.com/ but you can change what comes after .com/

www.example.com/old-page-name => can become =>  www.example.com/myNewPaage20180322.php

Background

We can use:

  1. The pushState() method if you want to add a new modified URL to history entries.

  2. The replaceState() method if you want to update/replace current history entry.

    .replaceState() operates exactly like .pushState() except that .replaceState() modifies the current history entry instead of creating a new one. Note that this doesn't prevent the creation of a new entry in the global browser history.


    .replaceState() is particularly useful when you want to update the state object or URL of the current history entry in response to some user action.


Code

To do that I will use The pushState() method for this example which works similarly to the following format:

var myNewURL = "my-new-URL.php";//the new URL
window.history.pushState("object or string", "Title", "/" + myNewURL );

Feel free to replace pushState with replaceState based on your requirements.

You can substitute the paramter "object or string" with {} and "Title" with document.title so the final statment will become:

window.history.pushState({}, document.title, "/" + myNewURL );

Results

The previous two lines of code will make a URL such as:

https://domain.tld/some/randome/url/which/will/be/deleted/

To become:

https://domain.tld/my-new-url.php

Action

Now let's try a different approach. Say you need to keep the file's name. The file name comes after the last / and before the query string ?.

http://www.someDomain.com/really/long/address/keepThisLastOne.php?name=john

Will be:

http://www.someDomain.com/keepThisLastOne.php

Something like this will get it working:

 //fetch new URL
 //refineURL() gives you the freedom to alter the URL string based on your needs. 
var myNewURL = refineURL();

//here you pass the new URL extension you want to appear after the domains '/'. Note that the previous identifiers or "query string" will be replaced. 
window.history.pushState("object or string", "Title", "/" + myNewURL );


//Helper function to extract the URL between the last '/' and before '?' 
//If URL is www.example.com/one/two/file.php?user=55 this function will return 'file.php' 
 //pseudo code: edit to match your URL settings  

   function refineURL()
{
    //get full URL
    var currURL= window.location.href; //get current address
    
    //Get the URL between what's after '/' and befor '?' 
    //1- get URL after'/'
    var afterDomain= currURL.substring(currURL.lastIndexOf('/') + 1);
    //2- get the part before '?'
    var beforeQueryString= afterDomain.split("?")[0];  
 
    return beforeQueryString;     
}

UPDATE:

For one liner fans, try this out in your console/firebug and this page URL will change:

    window.history.pushState("object or string", "Title", "/"+window.location.href.substring(window.location.href.lastIndexOf('/') + 1).split("?")[0]);

This page URL will change from:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22753052/remove-url-parameters-without-refreshing-page/22753103#22753103

To

http://stackoverflow.com/22753103#22753103

Note: as Samuel Liew indicated in the comments below, this feature has been introduced only for HTML5.

An alternative approach would be to actually redirect your page (but you will lose the query string `?', is it still needed or the data has been processed?).

window.location.href =  window.location.href.split("?")[0]; //"http://www.newurl.com";

Note 2:

Firefox seems to ignore window.history.pushState({}, document.title, ''); when the last argument is an empty string. Adding a slash ('/') worked as expected and removed the whole query part of the url string. Chrome seems to be fine with an empty string.

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13 Comments

You forgot to mention that this is a HTML5-feature only. developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/API/DOM/…
Why are you stripping from the last slash? What does that have to do with the OP's question? They just want to get rid of query string. The first question mark defines the beginning of the query string.
replaceState seems like a better fit, but pushState will work as well, that is until you start clicking the back and forward buttons in the browser and you realize there's a reason there's entire libraries for working with the History API.
@jfriend00 based on the behaviour of the function, what you add in the third paramter will be placed in the URL after the domain name, meanas after the domain / as in www.example.com/. There is a chance that the OP may have several / between the domain name and ? in case the website is in a sub directory, therefore, it's up to him/her to excersise and do a better url refinement since the question was about how to chagne the url, now how to get it correctly.
I'm just saying that you don't need this url.substring(url.lastIndexOf('/') + 1); at all. url.split("?")[0] will get the part before the first question mark which is all I think the OP asked for. The OP's question asks: "I am trying to remove everything after the "?" in the browser url".
|
339

These are all misleading, you never want to add to the browser history unless you want to go to a different page in a single page app. If you want to remove the parameters without a change in the page, you must use:

window.history.replaceState(null, '', window.location.pathname);

4 Comments

KISS (Keep is stupid and simple). The OP asked to remove all after the ? and this is the simplest answer you can get for what he asked for!
Didn't work on firefox. On refresh, get parameters still appear. Works using both push and replace. window.history.replaceState({page: location.pathname}, document.title, window.location.pathname); window.history.pushState({page: location.pathname}, document.title, window.location.pathname);
history.replaceState(null, null, location.pathname + location.hash) -- add location.hash if you don't want to remove that part
Can somebody tell this to Google? Their Maps web app populates my internet history with hundreds of entries for every zoom level and location scrolled to.
36

I belive the best and simplest method for this is:

var newURL = location.href.split("?")[0];
window.history.pushState('object', document.title, newURL);

Comments

30

I wanted to remove only one param success. Here's how you can do this:

let params = new URLSearchParams(location.search)
params.delete('success')
history.replaceState(null, '', '?' + params + location.hash)

This also retains #hash.


URLSearchParams won't work on IE, but being worked on for Edge. You can use a polyfill or a could use a naïve helper function for IE-support:

function take_param(key) {
    var params = new Map(location.search.slice(1).split('&')
        .map(function(p) { return p.split(/=(.*)/) }))   
    var value = params.get(key)
    params.delete(key)
    var search = Array.from(params.entries()).map(
        function(v){ return v[0]+'='+v[1] }).join('&')
    return {search: search ? '?' + search : '', value: value}
}

This can be used like:

history.replaceState(
    null, '', take_param('success').search + location.hash)

2 Comments

Great solution, is there any way to not add the '?' if no params are passed?
@RickS Of course, the take_param is already doing that, but you can make the URLSearchParams do the same by doing: history.replaceState(null, '', (params ? '?' + params : '') + location.hash). Or however you like.
30

a simple way to do this, works on any page, requires HTML 5

// get the string following the ?
var query = window.location.search.substring(1)

// is there anything there ?
if(query.length) {
   // are the new history methods available ?
   if(window.history != undefined && window.history.pushState != undefined) {
        // if pushstate exists, add a new state to the history, this changes the url without reloading the page

        window.history.pushState({}, document.title, window.location.pathname);
   }
}

3 Comments

This works amazingly well. Unfortunately, I don't have the first clue as to why it work. Grateful all the same.
the first two lines check if there is anything after the ? (substring just removes the '?') then i check if the browser supports the new pushstate call, and finally i use pushstate to add a state to the stack of urls (you can push and pop urls on that stack), window.location.pathname is a local url minus the query and minus the domain name and prefix (domain.com/THIS?notthis)
18

Better solution :

window.history.pushState(null, null, window.location.pathname);

1 Comment

easy and short, thanks, please review the second parameter is string and can't be null. it must be window.history.pushState(null, "", window.location.pathname);
12

if I have a special tag at the end of my URL like: http://domain.com/?tag=12345 Here is the below code to remove that tag whenever it presents in the URL:

<script>
// Remove URL Tag Parameter from Address Bar
if (window.parent.location.href.match(/tag=/)){
    if (typeof (history.pushState) != "undefined") {
        var obj = { Title: document.title, Url: window.parent.location.pathname };
        history.pushState(obj, obj.Title, obj.Url);
    } else {
        window.parent.location = window.parent.location.pathname;
    }
}
</script>

This gives the idea to remove one or more (or all) parameters from URL

With window.location.pathname you basically get everything before '?' in the url.

var pathname = window.location.pathname; // Returns path only

var url = window.location.href; // Returns full URL

2 Comments

im not sure this is answering the question, but the question itself is unclear :)
@MartijnScheffer right, I improved the answer to address answering the original question, thanks for the note.
9

None of these solutions really worked for me, here is a IE11-compatible function that can also remove multiple parameters:

/**
* Removes URL parameters
* @param removeParams - param array
*/
function removeURLParameters(removeParams) {
  const deleteRegex = new RegExp(removeParams.join('=|') + '=')

  const params = location.search.slice(1).split('&')
  let search = []
  for (let i = 0; i < params.length; i++) if (deleteRegex.test(params[i]) === false) search.push(params[i])

  window.history.replaceState({}, document.title, location.pathname + (search.length ? '?' + search.join('&') : '') + location.hash)
}

removeURLParameters(['param1', 'param2'])

Comments

5
        var currURL = window.location.href;
        var url = (currURL.split(window.location.host)[1]).split("?")[0];
        window.history.pushState({}, document.title, url);

This will be a cleaner way to clear only query string.

Comments

4

Here is how can specific query param be removed (even if repeated), without removing other query params:

const newUrl = new URL(location.href);
newUrl.searchParams.delete('deal');
window.history.replaceState({}, document.title, newUrl.href);

1 Comment

The elegant solution.
2
//Joraid code is working but i altered as below. it will work if your URL contain "?" mark or not
//replace URL in browser
if(window.location.href.indexOf("?") > -1) {
    var newUrl = refineUrl();
    window.history.pushState("object or string", "Title", "/"+newUrl );
}

function refineUrl()
{
    //get full url
    var url = window.location.href;
    //get url after/  
    var value = url = url.slice( 0, url.indexOf('?') );
    //get the part after before ?
    value  = value.replace('@System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["BaseURL"]','');  
    return value;     
}

Comments

1

To clear out all the parameters, without doing a page refresh, AND if you are using HTML5, then you can do this:

history.pushState({}, '', 'index.html' ); //replace 'index.html' with whatever your page name is

This will add an entry in the browser history. You could also consider replaceState if you don't wan't to add a new entry and just want to replace the old entry.

Comments

1

a single line solution :

history.replaceState && history.replaceState(
  null, '', location.pathname + location.search.replace(/[\?&]my_parameter=[^&]+/, '').replace(/^&/, '?')
);

credits : https://gist.github.com/simonw/9445b8c24ddfcbb856ec

Comments

0

Here is an ES6 one liner which preserves the location hash and does not pollute browser history by using replaceState:

(l=>{window.history.replaceState({},'',l.pathname+l.hash)})(location)

4 Comments

Could you add some more info about this, it is hard to understand what this is doing.
@RickS It's an IIFE (immediately invoked function expression) that's why it's wrapped in parenthesis ()(location) the first parenthesis makes it able to stay on it's own as anonymous function, the (location) at the end immediately invokes the function passing it the global location aka window.location object, so the function has access to the globals location as l the rest is basic replaceState as in all other answers, he's concatenating the pathname and hash (example.com/#hash) as the new url. Hope it's digestible, if not let me know 😉
@Can why not just use window.history.replaceState({}, '', location.pathname + location.hash)? ;)
@FabianvonEllerts Good question actually, not really sure only thing is you don't have to write location 2 times 😁 yet don't need to assign it to a variable 😉 or is there more to it Joey?
0

Running this js for me cleared any params on the current url without refreshing the page.

window.history.replaceState({}, document.title, location.protocol + '//' + location.host + location.pathname);

Comments

0

I see many here who suggest just doing something like this:

window.history.replaceState(null, '', window.location.pathname);

The problem with this answer is that the parameters are only getting deleted from your search bar while they still exist in ‍url.searchParams‍.

For Example:

You're in https://someweb.site/?foo=bar and window.history.replaceState(null, '', window.location.pathname) is executed.

You will definitely see https://someweb.site/ now on your search bar. But when you see closely:

for(var [key, value] of url.searchParams.entries()) {
    console.log(key+ ' => '+ value);
}
foo => bar

they still exist in url.searchParams‍ and it can causes you trouble later when you want to add another parameter: For example, if you want to add name=john, you'll have suddenly ?foo=bar&name=john in your browser.

I suggest removing all entries in url.searchParams first would be a better way:

function deleteAllParams() {
    for(var [key, value] of url.searchParams.entries()) {
       url.searchParams.delete(key);
    }
    window.history.replaceState(null, null, url);
}

Comments

-3

In Javascript:

window.location.href =  window.location.href.split("?")[0]

2 Comments

That forces a reload, which is specifically asked by OP not to.
thanks your way is better than other , i don't know why other user press negative vote for you

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