Disable Link Preview in Apple Mail (appeared in iOS 16.1.1)

Muttleydog, thanks for trying to help, but that’s not the solution unfortunately!

“Open Safari, long press any link, select option two hide link preview, top right I think”

I had never noticed that particular preview option! It’s not a solve to the issue Zi opened this thread on but it is interesting and I’ve captured a screenshot of it (attached)

I long pressed and it is the first time I’ve noticed the “preview” option there. Honestly, I don’t see the benefit of it (it saves me using “back” I guess, if the link doesn’t take me to what I want).

Whether I use the “preview” or not in that menu makes no difference to the paste of the link into an email body in the mail app though. It still pastes as a preview link.

In your number two action:

”typically a default is for a link preview, short press the link, top right arrow gives a drop-down option to default into plain text link, select and this is now the default for pasted links.”

Yes, there is an option “convert to Plain Link” (instead of the preview we never wanted) and that works but it is NOT the default for pasted links. It is the default only in THAT email. When you open a new blank email and paste the link, it shows the preview again.

We really need the default to STAY as paste links as plain text. Or have an option to behave like that always somewhere (in a clipboard settings option?)

The only solve/workaround for now seems to be to press the space bar (or other character) then paste, then go back and remove the character/space you put in before pasting. If you don’t do this, the preview is generated, and that means the link is visited, which is exactly what you do not want to do if you are pasting a URL into an email to report a link as that of a spammer/fraudster/phishing criminal.

UTBadger,

For example, I receive a spam email that has a link to a fake Norton or Amazon invoice with a phone number to call such as 1-888-123-1234.

Many of us will know not to call the phone number. It is likely going to connect us to a call center in Sector 5, Kolcata in India. The agent who answers our call will likely claim to be in the US employed by the scam invoice company, and execute their refund scam script.

Or I receive an email which is advertising some well known brand like Louis Vuitton eyewear at very cheap prices.

You are correct that there is an easy way to report spam emails, but I go a bit further than most people do. I look up the carrier of the US telephone number and report the scammer to the carrier. I look up the host of the website URL and report the scam website. I maybe also report the domain to the registrar if it was created that day or in the last couple of days. If there are images in the email that are pulled from other sources, I report the abuse to the hosting provider (even though I set my email client to not load the images). If it looks like a counterfeit Louis Vuitton site, I let the trademark name owner know do they can work to shut down the site. I also find I’m on a list of targeted people that are sent spams which ignore opt out requests and the URLs in these spam emails are often to “redirect sites” when the senders are affiliate marketeers and they operate these redirect sites as a step in getting measurement of traffic they generate to the ultimate target websites they are promoting so I report the initial site, and I visit the redirect site (minus some parameters) and grab the site they are redirecting to next, and report that.

Many of the links will include parameters that identify the “visit” for the fraudster spammer, but that only happens if they are “visited” so I don’t click the links but I do report in full as I describe above.

I don’t want link previews to be a default option. I just want plain text pasting for reasons I trust are now very obvious :)

Come on Apple! Give back what you took away please.

Totally agree. Only have to forget momentarily, and paste into the email body, and it’s too late. The URL has a visit. Thanks Apple. Not clever at all. Now what WOULD be good is the option to default to not visit every URL pasted into an email, and maybe even an option to automatically default to safe paste where the URL is broken purposefully (add a space character after https:// and and a space before the last “dot” for the domain name/extension “domain .com”) - that actually brings some benefits for those who report scam, fraud, abuse and spam more fully than simply marking an email as junk/spam.

I’m very surprised Apple launched this without a thought. Really not cool.

That is helpful Hooliganism!!

I still cannot believe it though…. Apple the guardian of privacy is giving it up and making things bad for people fighting off spammers/hackers/phishers/malicious fools. It’s just unreal.

Unfortunately “Concert to plain link” is not a solution at all.

The link has already been “visited” by the device after it was pasted.

The problem is not that I don’t know how to turn it into a plain link. The problem is that it is visited when that’s the absolute opposite of what I want to happen. It’s also the unexpected behavior of the UI. Offer to convert it to a link that is visited and pulls a preview, but don’t automatically do that with no option to prevent it happening…