Isn’t it annoying….you have actually go to a web site to shorten your URL!  Here’s how to do it in PowerShell, and you’ll get the shortened URL printed on the command line.

If you save this script in a folder, you can run it by navigating to the script, right-clicking and choosing “Run in PowerShell”.

# Generate shortened URL using the Bitly API 
# To set this up: 
# * You must create an account at Bit.ly, and obtain an $ 
# * authorization token. 
# * Verify your Bit.ly account with an eMail that Bitly 
# * sends to your account. 
# * Obtain an authorization token at: https://bitly.com/a/oauth_apps
# Paste the authorization token here…

$OAuthToken=”xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”

$Instructions = “You can paste a long URL into the command line by` right-clicking the mouse.`n”
$Instructions 
$LongURL= Read-Host “Enter or Paste in the Long URL”

# Make the call
$MyURL=Invoke-WebRequest `
-Uri https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v3/shorten `
-Body @{access_token=$OAuthToken;longURL=$LongURL} `
-Method Get

#Get the elements from the returned JSON 

$MyURLjson = $MyURL.Content | convertfrom-json 

# Print out the shortened URL 
$MyURLjson.data.url 

Pause