How to Disable Automatic Link Previews in MacOS Ventura

In that same thread someone else posted a Terminal command that does the same thing: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/450339/turn-off-link-preview-in-mail#comment669426_457934

I just did the Terminal command (Ventura 13.4.1(c)) and it seems to have banished the link preview (after a restart)!

What happens to your link preview when you visit Edit menu > Substitutions and deselect Smart Links there?

My work around:

Settings - Preferences - opt for "plain text" instead of "rich text."

This seemed to solve the annoyance of link preview.

Hope it helps someone!

This has been fixed in Sonoma OS. Go to Mail > Settings > Composing and turn off "Add link previews".

Gerrit Griebel in his post wrote:

A single space as first char of line before the URL also prevents unwanted preview formatting

And this worked for me.

Thanks

Another workaround I discovered accidentally is typing a space and then pasting the URL seems to not trigger the link preview. Then you can leave the small space or delete it. Still annoying, but slightly quicker than the ⌘K workaround.

Well, yes, that does it but is not really a solution: it then also does not allow me to use text styles until I have clicked “convert to rich text”.

I have also tried to paste a link as unstyled text, but that too does not work.

However (similar was mentioned before) a morr “elegant” solution is to type a character adjacent to the link just before. I found that a hard space will do, and is not very noticeable.

It does not work if pasted just after: the link preview happens too fast.

:-(

I am reporting this and a lot of similar annoyances to Apple.

Apple support just contacted me and told me the Sonoma update had option to turn that dang thing off. I downloaded it, installed it and it worked. FINALLY!

Thank you, Apple

Adding a single space before pasting the link does the trick.

pra6 wrote:

It's astounding that they added this crappy new "feature" without the ability to turn it off. What 17 year old developer thought everyone wanted it? Jeez...

We do not work for Apple but volunteer our time.

So to honest , " What 17 year old developer thought everyone wanted it? Jeez... " we can not answer that question.

Perhaps the user ( you ) would be better served by asking Apple directly

1 - Get Support Choose a product and we’ll find you the best solution.Start now and open an Apple Support Ticket as they are Apple Employees to deal will these types of issues . 

2 - Product Feedback - Apple

Workaround:

In the Mail app on your Mac, do one of the following in your message:

Choose Format > Make Plain Text (available only when the current format is rich text). Plain text format doesn’t include formatting (such as bold or italic text) or items like tables and images, but is readable for all recipients.

and uncheck the box further down "use same format as original email"

I have found that you post the first link, waste time turning off the feature by mouse over at the top right, Click "Convert to Plain Link". All this is unnecessary as we should be able to disable something as bad as this in Preferences. However the good news is that subsequent links are put in as Plain Links.

I hate this "feature" with a vengeance.

Very annoying, indeed. As a workaround, I created a macro in Keyboard Maestro, and bound it to "⇧ ⌘ V", to paste the link using the ⌘K, ⌘V, <enter> sequence. I have to remember to use that keyboard combo, but at least it's a single key(combo)-press to paste a link.

Ugh, I could not agree with you more: The sheer presumption here that every user would find this automatic feature helpful — without even offering an option anywhere to turn the stupid thing off — is incredibly irritating. Being able to share the spelled-out version of links is vital!

Anyway, I found a super-simple workaround on my iPad for myself that I wanted to share, in case it’ll save anyone else from torturous frustration: If you type the URL after a square bracket (i.e., “[link.com”) and then delete the bracket, it’ll leave your link alone without converting it to a Link Preview.

Cheers!

Easiest fix:

1) Hit space bar (then insert link)

2) Insert after any character or within text body

Yes, not useful and irritating - but easy workaround as long as you don’t start email/sentence/paragraph with the link.