Link management · 6 min read · Updated October 19, 2026

Link Controls: Passwords, Expiry, Scheduling and Click Limits

A short link does not have to behave the same way from the moment it is created to the moment someone deletes it. ReSlug lets you password-protect a link, hold it back until a set date, close it after a set date, or shut it off after a fixed number of clicks, all without changing the URL anyone already has.

This guide covers the four link controls, what a visitor actually sees when one of them blocks a click, how to send that visitor somewhere else instead of a dead end, and which plan each control needs.

The four controls, and where they live

Password, schedule, click limit and fallback URL are set from the same place: the advanced options on the create-link and edit-link dialogs, alongside the UTM fields, retargeting pixels and routing rules. None of them change the short URL itself. A link with a password set still looks like any other reslug.link/abc123 short link; what changes is what happens on the other end of the click.

• Password. The visitor must enter a password before the redirect happens.
• Schedule. An activation date, an expiry date, or both. The link does not redirect before the first or after the second.
• Click limit. A maximum number of successful redirects, after which the link closes itself.
• Fallback URL. Where to send visitors instead of a dead end once the link is closed.

Password-protected links

Setting a password turns the click into a two-step flow. The visitor lands on an unlock page, enters the password, and only then gets redirected to the real destination. There is no account and no username involved; it is one shared password for anyone who has the link.

• Length, not complexity. A password must be between 4 and 128 characters. There is no requirement for numbers, symbols or mixed case.
• A wrong guess just says "incorrect password." ReSlug does not reveal whether the link itself exists versus whether the password is wrong, and it does not lock out an IP after repeated attempts, so treat the password as a speed bump against casual sharing rather than real access control for sensitive content.
• Changing or removing it is immediate. Set a new password on an existing link and the old one stops working right away; remove it entirely and the link redirects straight through again, with no unlock step.

Because the password check happens before ReSlug even reveals the destination, it works the same way regardless of what the destination is: a PDF, a video, a form, a competitor-only landing page. Nobody can bypass it by pasting a different path, because the real URL is never sent to the browser until the password is accepted.

Scheduling: activation and expiry

Scheduling is two independent dates on the same link: when it starts redirecting, and when it stops. Set either one alone, both together, or neither.

• Activates at. Before this date, the link resolves to a countdown page instead of the destination. The countdown updates live and the page reloads itself the moment the activation time passes, so a visitor who loads the link five minutes early does not need to refresh by hand.
• Expires at. After this date, the link stops redirecting for good. There is no automatic reactivation; clearing or moving the expiry date is a manual edit.
• Both dates are validated against the clock and against each other. Each one must be in the future when you set it, and activation must come before expiry. You cannot save a link that is scheduled to expire before it has even started.

Scheduling is useful for anything with a real-world start or end that you do not want to manage by hand: an embargoed announcement, a flash sale, a link printed on a flyer for an event that has not happened yet. Put the final URL on the link today, set it to activate the morning of launch, and there is nothing left to remember to do at launch time.

Click limits

A max-clicks value closes the link automatically once that many successful redirects have happened. It counts redirects, not raw hits, so a page-preview bot fetching the link for a social card does not burn through the quota the way a real click would. Once the limit is hit, the link stays closed; raising the limit or removing it is, again, a manual edit, not something that resets on its own.

This is the control to reach for when a link maps to a finite real-world resource: a fixed number of event tickets, a limited-run discount code, a beta invite that should only seat as many people as the beta can actually hold. The link enforces the cap itself, so there is no separate inventory system to keep in sync with how many people clicked.

The fallback URL: what happens when a control closes the link

By default, a closed link shows a plain ReSlug status page: "Link expired," "Link no longer available," and so on, with a button to create your own short link. A fallback URL replaces that dead end with a redirect of your own. Set it once on the link, and visitors go there when the link is expired, click-capped, or manually disabled.

A fallback is what turns a dead campaign link into a second chance: a flash-sale link that hit its click cap can fall back to the general store page instead of an error, and a link to a one-time event can fall back to a "see next year's event" page once the expiry date passes.

What a visitor sees for every closed or gated state

The last row is a different mechanism from the four controls above: ReSlug can flag a link as unsafe on its own when a destination looks malicious, independent of anything you configured, and that state cannot be routed around with a fallback URL.

Which plan unlocks which control

Link expiration is available on every plan. Scheduling, password protection, click limits and fallback redirects are Pro features; on the Free plan their fields are shown but disabled, with an upgrade prompt in place of the input.

Setting a control on a link in ReSlug

1. Open Links and create a new link, or edit an existing one.
2. In the advanced options, open Schedule to set an activation date, an expiry date, or both; open Password to set or change the unlock password; open Max clicks to set a click limit; open Fallback URL to set where closed visitors should land.
3. Save the link. Every control takes effect immediately, including on a link that already has live traffic.

Because all four controls sit on the link itself rather than on a separate rule set, checking what is active on a given link is just a matter of opening it and seeing which of the advanced-option buttons has a filled dot next to it.