Does anon.to Track Clicks or Store Personal Data?

No. According to anon.to's own description, the service does not track clicks, visitors, or any personal data, and its Direct Redirect feature creates no short link and stores nothing. The site presents itself as "privacy-first link shortening," with referrer hiding and HTTPS encryption as core design choices rather than optional settings. If your goal is to pass a link along without generating a record of who clicked it or where they came from, that is exactly what anon.to claims to do.

What anon.to says it does not collect

The homepage makes three specific promises, and they map directly onto the tracking question:

• No tracking — "We don't track clicks, visitors, or any personal data."
• Referrer hiding — "Destination sites never see where you came from."
• No storage on direct redirect — "Redirect any URL anonymously — no short link created, nothing stored."

These are claims about the service's behavior, not independently audited facts. Treat them as the operator's stated policy. The practical takeaway is that anon.to positions itself as the opposite of a typical shortener, which usually logs click counts, timestamps, geolocation, and device data to power analytics dashboards.

How the two modes differ on data retention

The distinction matters because "anon.to doesn't store anything" is only fully true for one of the two modes.

With Shorten, a mapping between the short URL and your destination must exist for the redirect to work — otherwise the service couldn't resolve it. The site does not describe what that mapping contains or how long it persists, so the honest reading is: no click tracking, but a link record necessarily exists.

With Direct Redirect, you get a URL of the form https://anon.to/?<your-url> and nothing is created or stored. This is the mode to choose when you want the strongest anonymity claim the site makes.

What "no referrer" actually means for you

Referrer hiding is the part that affects you even if you never think about analytics. When you click a normal link, the destination site can often see the page you came from. That can reveal which forum, chat, or document you were reading. anon.to strips that, so the destination sees an anonymous entry rather than your source page.

This protects the source of the click, not your identity as a visitor. If you are logged into the destination site, it still knows who you are. anon.to hides where you came from, not who you are.

Choosing the right mode

• Use Direct Redirect when you want a single anonymous hand-off and want nothing stored. This is the mode that matches the "nothing is tracked, nothing is stored" description most completely.
• Use Shorten when you need a compact, reusable link — for example, posting one URL in several places. Accept that a link mapping exists, even though clicks aren't tracked.
• Don't rely on either to hide your identity from a site you're logged into, or to protect against a destination that logs IP addresses on its own end. anon.to controls the referrer and its own logging, not the destination's.

Practical caveats worth knowing

• All redirects run over HTTPS, so the link itself is encrypted in transit.
• The site lists About, Privacy, Terms, Report, Integrate, and GitHub links, plus Login and Register options — meaning there is an account layer alongside the anonymous tools. Using an account is a separate decision from using the anonymous redirect.
• The homepage does not state retention periods, logging policies in detail, or jurisdiction. If your threat model requires those specifics, the site's own Privacy page is the place to check before relying on it.
• "No tracking" is a policy statement from the operator. For high-stakes anonymity, combine it with other measures rather than treating any single shortener as sufficient.

The short answer to the original question: anon.to states it does not track clicks, visitors, or personal data, and its Direct Redirect mode stores nothing at all. Shorten mode necessarily keeps a link mapping but is still described as untracked.