How to Disable Automatic Link Previews in MacOS Ventura

Use plain or rich text in emails in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

But not sure this can be done on Received e-mail

 Product Feedback - Apple and make it known to Apple regarding this ongoing issue and ask for some added Feature .

Agreed is it is awful and not only that it doesn't work. I've linked to movies and if you click on the wrong part of the "link" (sic) the recipient sees a JPG not a movie.

I now put the link in "...." which preserves the link but it is all effort to overcome this junk idea.

I doubt the programmer was 17, more likely a student with a summer project.

This is one of the most poorly implemented 'feature' in a long time. and, it's getting worse. Anytime I share a link in emails it causes me issues. Forget about sending a URL to a multi-page PDF - that's an absolute disaster.

It's really bad if you want to manually type a slug after pasting a url. It will create the preview while you're typing, causing you to have to then tell it to remove the preview, then you have to remove formatting, then you can continue to type.

I cannot put into words just how horrible this 'feature' is... which cannot be turned off as a setting.

Never ever ever have I heard of anyone receiving an email appreciate having a preview. It's actually quite the opposite - everyone hates getting them. It causes confusion, errors, previews of page 1 of a pdf as a PNG attachment (which not only causes confusion but makes the recipient(s) think that I'm incompetent.

This causes me more time, frustration and issues using mac mail for business use. It's terrible, useless and embarrassing.

This is the type of childish feature that imposes itself on you without Apple asking you whether you want this or not. Well here it is: we don't want it.

Another way to prevent this from happening is to block Mail from accessing the web, except for ports 143 and 993 imap(s) ports. Then the tool won't be able to produce the link previews. Especially block ports 80 and 443 the http(s) ports.

Thanks for this - just upgraded, looked for fix, found this thread, found all the options to fix:

• Disable rich text (but a pain for everything else, like when replying and reply-body is now in plain text)
• Use Command-K (annoying to do every time)
• Put space before link (annoying to do every time)
• Terminal fix (seems to work permanently, return to old way - did have to restart computer to get it to work)

Yes, very annoying 'upgrade' that makes things worse.

ScrimshawHatcheck wrote:

Apple, please make this ridiculous feature go away!

Apple doesn't read here in this user-to-user forum for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Yes it is annoying, and unfortunately it is now typical of Apple. They have “grown up” and play with the big boys.

As said a few times, Thomas Tempelmann's fix does work.

Also again: if you want more of my opinion about Ventura, you can look at http://www.cailliau.org/Alphabetical/A/Apple/Ventura-en.html

Any reports of errors in that page are also welcome.

sonkasaurus wrote:

Oh my, this needs to stop.. Pretty please! Maybe a tickbox option to turn this off for ever in the advanced settings?

It is single handedly the most useless, slow and layout disruptive feature ever to grace the Mail interface (which I otherwise like).

Please!

This is a user-to-user technical support forum. Apple doesn't read here for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

RobertCailliau wrote:

I want Eudora back... But then I always put productivity before appearance.

That would be something to take up with whoever owns the rights to Eudora now.

Apple doesn't read here for feedback or suggestions. However, you can let them know your thoughts using the feedback link posted above.

Meanwhile, there are other choices than either a very old, discontinued application and Apple Mail. I happen to like Spark but, as everyone's needs and preferences are different, that might not work for you.

This works for me to turn off link-previews in outgoing emails AND to not download images (aka "remote content") in incoming emails: 

in iOS/iPadOS: Settings> Mail> Privacy Protection>

Privacy Protect Mail Activity [OFF] (..yes - believe or not, "OFF")

Block All Remote Content [ON]

in MacOS: Mail> Settings> Privacy>

Protect Mail Activity [unselect] (..yes, same as above - believe or not, leave checkbox unchecked)

Block All Remote Content [select]

No more annoying link previews in emails you are writing; no more auto-download of images (which represent a major privacy-leak, especially to spammers who can confirm their emails are being received if you auto-download their images).

Among all great improvements in Sonoma, this one might be minor but for those reading this - a very welcome feature. Want to disable Link previews? Go to Mail --> Settings --> Composing and turn off 'Add link previews'.

Thankfully Sonoma (macOS 14) now includes a Mail setting to turn the link preview feature off.

Mail > Settings > Composing > Add link previews

Make sure the "Add link previews" checkbox in the top "Composing" section is not checked.

dreamer0201 wrote:

Obviously, someone who doesn't do real work created this.

Or perhaps they just do a different sort of work than you. It is within the realm of possibility that not everyone has the same needs that you do.

Tell Apple what you'd like to see here:

Product Feedback - Apple

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...