A TikTok share link contains more about the person who copied it than about the video. That is not an exaggeration for effect: count the parameters and most of them describe the sharer's device, browser and session.
A typical share link
https://www.tiktok.com/@someone/video/7123456789012345678?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7234567890123456789
/@someone/video/7123456789012345678 identifies the video. Nothing else is required.
is_from_webapp records that the link came from the web version rather than the app.
sender_device records what the sharer was using. pc, mobile, and so on.
web_id is a browser-level identifier belonging to the person who copied the link.
Depending on how the link was produced you may also see _r, _t, u_code, share_app_id, share_link_id, share_item_id and tt_from. All of them relate to the share rather than the content.
The part worth pausing on
web_id is the one I would single out. It is not describing the video, the campaign, or the click. It is a persistent identifier for a browser, and the browser it identifies belongs to whoever copied the link.
Send that link to five people and all five are opening the video through a URL carrying your browser identifier. Post it publicly and it sits there indefinitely.
I do not think TikTok is doing anything unusual by industry standards. Every platform in this series does some version of this. But TikTok share links carry more of it than most, and the parameters are unusually legible about what they are: a field literally named sender_device is not being subtle.
Short links hide all of it
TikTok's mobile app frequently produces short links instead:
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMabc123/
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSdef456/
These are redirects. The parameters are still there, waiting on the other side, but you cannot see them and cannot clean them until you follow the link.
There is no way around this other than opening the link and cleaning the address you land on. This is a general property of short links rather than anything specific to TikTok, and it is precisely why platforms like them.
Cleaning by hand
Keep the username and the numeric video ID. Delete everything from the question mark:
https://www.tiktok.com/@someone/video/7123456789012345678?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7234
https://www.tiktok.com/@someone/video/7123456789012345678
TikTok is one of the easier platforms to clean manually, because nothing in the query string is functional. The video ID lives in the path.
Doing it automatically
The link cleaner online handles TikTok URLs along with everything else. Paste, clean, copy.
Advertisement links are a different set
If you have arrived at a product page from a TikTok advertisement, you will see ttclid instead. That is the click identifier used for conversion tracking, and it works differently from the share parameters. It has its own explanation in what is ttclid.
Related reading
Instagram does something comparable with igshid, covered in how to clean Instagram links.
Everything in one table: the URL tracking parameter glossary.
Frequently asked questions
Does removing the parameters break the video link?
No. The username and video ID in the path are sufficient.
What is web_id in a TikTok link?
A browser-level identifier belonging to whoever copied the link, not to the person clicking it.
Can I clean a vm.tiktok.com link?
Not directly. Open it first, then clean the full URL it resolves to.
Why does my link look different from someone else's link to the same video?
Because most of the parameters describe the sharer rather than the video.
Does cleaning affect the creator's view count?
No. Views are counted when the video plays, regardless of what was in the URL.