How to send a link in iMessage without preview

Apple automatically turns most URLs in the Messages app into rich link previews, but they’re not always pretty, and sometimes you just want to see the full URL instead. While there is no setting on iOS, iPadOS or macOS that disables rich link previews in the Messages app, there is an easy way to show URLs complete with scheme, domain name, and path.

Problem with Rich Link Preview in Messages

When a link is sent via an SMS or iMessage conversation in Messages, the app will automatically convert the URL to an inline link preview. A typical preview consists of a title, domain (with or without a subdomain), and a small icon presented within a gray bubble.

Web developers can enhance the link previews seen in messages with Open Graph metadata embedded in the webpage. Doing so allows them to attach an image or playable video, change or leave the default Safari icon, and more.

There are many benefits to removing Preview, and these are just a few:

• This makes it easier to identify phishing attempts and avoid opening malicious links because the path carries additional information beyond the domain and subdomain.
• This prevents some links from throwing errors, such as spending too long trying to load a preview or saying the page cannot be found, both of which can often happen when sharing nameserver links.
• This avoids wrong previews. You may need to share a webpage that is not live yet. If the website is set to redirect to the closest match, you’ll see a preview of the page with the best match and not the page you’ve shared, leading to confusion.
• This prevents automatic character conversion. Messages will replace some identical characters in their default lookalike characters, resulting in an entirely different URL.
• It ruins the fun, especially when “rickrolling” someone.

Sending full URL instead of link preview

If you don’t want the receiver of your message — who probably also uses an Apple device — to see the rich link preview, you can use a simple trick to disable it. Most Android messaging apps will show the full URL And A rich link preview, so you only have to worry about doing this with friends who use Messages on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

Before pasting or typing a URL, put a period before it, then add another period after the URL. If you have “Smart Punctuation” enabled in Settings -> General -> Keyboard, most of you will see a space between the first period and the URL, since that’s the default, and that’s fine – this results in will not affect

Any of these will work: . , , , , ,

Additional dots will not be visible after sending – only the hyperlinked full URL.

You won’t always need the extra periods if you’re adding text to SMS or iMessage. For the most part, you can type whatever you want in front of the URL, but you’ll also need to add a period after the link. On the other hand, you can type pretty much anything after the URL, as long as a period doesn’t precede the link.

Check this out: It’s cool. , Mad . , Who knew? , it should be easy. mind blown!

Actually, you don’t even need periods. This will disable the link preview as long as you type words, letters, numbers, etc. on either side of the URL. This becomes easier if you want to include the URL mid-sentence.

relationship

If you’re sending two links in the same message, things work differently, but that’s simple. Just put a letter, word, number, period, or any other punctuation mark before the first URL, and that’s it. It does the same thing when using spaces between links or separating lines.

, either .

Periods aren’t the only things you can use to surround a link, but they result in the cleanest-looking URL. You can enclose URLs in quotation marks (“), exclamation marks (!), commas (,), semicolons (;), and many other characters, but those characters will appear in the message.

, , ,

If you just want to use the period before and after the link, I’ve created a super-simple shortcut you can use from your share sheet. That way, if there’s a URL you want to share from Safari or any other app, you can open the share sheet and select “Remove link preview.” Then, copy the link with the durations added, start a new message draft with the durations added, or share the link from the share sheet with a favorite contact or added durations in another app.

View full URL instead of link preview

When you need to see the full URL for a link that someone sent you in messages, it’s not as simple as sending it yourself. There’s no setting for messages that disables automatic rich link preview, so you’re stuck with them. However, you can still view or get the full URL.

On an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, long-press Preview, and you’ll see Quick Actions appear; Tap “Copy” from the list to paste it completely into another message or another app so you can paste it.

If you want to see the full link instead of just copying it, long-press the preview to expand it, then tap “Hide preview” at the top of the expanded preview. The image will then replace itself with the full URL. The nice thing about this is that iOS and iPadOS will remember your preference, so from now on you’ll see the full URL for all the previews you expand in Messages.

However, some rich link previews can’t be shortened to view the full URL, especially with links to some of Apple’s apps, including links to Apple TV and Apple Music.

On macOS, you can right-click on Preview and hit “Copy” to copy the URL, but you can’t expand Preview to show the full URL on iOS and iPadOS.

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Cover photo, screenshots and GIFs by Justin Meyers/Gadget Hacks

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