QR codes that expire on their own

Short answer

Any QR code or link can now carry an optional expiration date. When it passes, the QR code stops working, visitors go to a destination of your choosing, and the QR code removes itself from your workspace. It is off by default: a QR code with no expiration date keeps working forever.

What we shipped

Campaigns end. Printed materials do not. A conference badge from last March is still perfectly scannable, and it is still sending people to a schedule that stopped being true months ago.

Until now the only way to deal with that was to remember, and to go delete things by hand. Now you can decide up front.

Set a date when you create it

In the creation wizard, the Customize step has an Expiration section. It is collapsed until you click Set an expiration date, because most QR codes should never expire and we did not want a field there implying otherwise.

Pick a day and, if it matters, a time. New dates default to 23:59 on the day you choose, since "expires on the 31st" nearly always means through the end of the 31st.

Decide where people land afterwards

Optionally set an expired destination. Anyone scanning after the date lands there instead of hitting a wall.

This matters more than it sounds for anything printed. A poster does not come down the day the campaign does, and sending a late scanner to your homepage is a better outcome than sending them to nothing. Leave it empty and they get a clean expired page instead.

Across a whole batch

Bulk insert has an Add expiration button that reveals an expiration column plus a control that sets one date across every row at once, which is what you want when the entire batch is one campaign.

CSV import gained two optional columns at the end for the date and the expired destination. Files you already have keep importing exactly as before, so nothing you have built breaks.

A plain date like 2026-12-31 is read as the end of that day. Bulk creation is all-or-nothing, so we check every row before sending anything and tell you which ones need fixing rather than rejecting the batch with a single unhelpful error.

Ask the assistant

"Make this QR code stop working after the 15th and send people to our homepage."

The assistant will do it. It will not set an expiration date on its own initiative, and it tells you what expiring actually does before committing.

Expiring is not archiving

We want to be direct about this, because it is the one thing worth understanding before you use it.

When a QR code expires it is deleted, along with its scan history, its workflow, its tags, its dashboard and its image. Its shortlink goes back into circulation and can be claimed by a new QR code later.

That is the behaviour we chose on purpose. An expired campaign is finished, and leaving its remains cluttering your workspace helps nobody. But it does mean two things are worth doing:

• Read or export the campaign's numbers before the date passes.
• Think twice before reusing a freed shortlink that is printed on something still in circulation.

Before the date passes, nothing is lost. You can move the date, or remove the expiration entirely, and the QR code carries on as though you had never set one. After it passes, it is gone.

For the same reason, an expiration date has to be in the future when you set it. A date in the past would destroy a QR code through what looks like an ordinary edit, so we reject it.

Frequently asked questions

Is this available on my plan?

Yes. Expiration is available on every plan, including the free one.

Do my existing QR codes change in any way?

No. Every QR code you already have has no expiration date, which means it never expires. Nothing changes unless you set one.

Can I make a QR code expire after a number of scans instead?

Not yet. Expiration is by date and time for now. If scan-based expiry is something you need, tell us.

What happens to a QR code that expires while it is in a directory?

The same as any other: it is removed from the workspace and disappears from the directory with it. The directory itself is untouched.

Can I see a list of everything that has expired?

Not today. An expired QR code leaves behind only what is needed to tell a visitor it has expired, not enough to list meaningfully. If this is something you want, we would like to hear it.