Migrate from Bitly to Elido
One-shot import of every Bitly link, with slugs preserved. Paste a Generic Access Token; we do the rest.
Bitly's Free tier capped you at 10 links per month and stripped tracking from links you'd already created. Bitly's Core plan starts at $8/month and rate-limits API access. Elido imports every link in your Bitly account into a workspace you control, on a domain you own, on a plan that doesn't paywall the API. The migration runs server-side in 5–10 minutes for accounts under ~10,000 links.
- Every active bit.ly slug, including custom slugs you set
- Long URL (the destination)
- Title and Bitly tags (we add an `imported:bitly` tag automatically)
- Active/inactive status — soft-deleted Bitly links are skipped, not imported
- Click history. Bitly does not export per-click data; new clicks land in Elido analytics from the cutover moment forward.
- Bitly campaign / channel groupings. Re-create them in Elido using campaigns + folders.
- QR code customisations. Default Elido QR is generated for every imported link; custom designs need to be re-applied.
- Custom redirects with Bitly Branded Short Domains attached to your account — the slug imports, but you'll point your DNS at Elido and keep the same hostname.
How the migration runs
Five steps, end-to-end. The interactive panel lives at /dashboard/integrations/bitly-migration.
- 1
Generate a Bitly Generic Access Token
Bitly → Settings → API → Generic Access Token → Generate. Token is a 40-character hex string. It only needs read scope; we never write to your Bitly account.
- 2
Open the Elido import flow
Sign in to Elido, then go to Integrations → Bitly → Elido. Paste the token. We list every group on your Bitly account so you can pick the right source.
- 3
Pick a target domain and conflict strategy
Pair your bit.ly group with an Elido domain (s.elido.me by default; b.elido.me or your own custom domain if you've added one). Choose what happens when an Elido slug is already taken: append a suffix (mylink-2), skip, or fail the whole job.
- 4
Run the import — usually under 10 minutes
We paginate Bitly's API at 100 links per page. The dashboard polls progress every two seconds. The token stays in memory for the duration of the run and is dropped on completion — we never persist it.
- 5
Update your DNS or your share buttons
If you brought a custom domain over, point its DNS at Elido (CNAME or A record per /docs/guides/custom-domains). If you're keeping bit.ly URLs alive in old marketing, leave them — both surfaces continue to resolve until your Bitly subscription ends.
FAQ
How long does a 5,000-link migration take?
Roughly 4–8 minutes. The Bitly API caps a single page at 100 links and we make one call per page sequentially with a small interval to stay polite. The bottleneck is Bitly's API, not Elido.
What if a slug already exists on my Elido domain?
You pick the conflict strategy when you start. Suffix is the default — Elido walks mylink-2, mylink-3 until a free slug is found. Skip leaves the existing link alone and logs the source row. Fail aborts the whole job on the first conflict.
Where does my Bitly token go?
Into the api-core process memory for the duration of the worker run, then it's dropped. The import_jobs row records the source vendor and your group GUID — never the token. (See our security posture at /trust.)
Can I undo a migration?
Yes — the import_jobs row records every link it created, all tagged imported:bitly. Filter by tag in the dashboard and bulk-delete to reverse the run.
Is there a maximum job size?
50,000 links per job. Above that, email migrate@elido.app for a chunked migration.
Ready to leave Bitly?
Start in the dashboard. Read the engineering write-up first if you want to see how the worker is built.