turn off Rich URL previews in messages

Sigh, this is another huge security issue. I just got sent a link and some random daily mail video started playing on both my phone and MacOS Sierra. And I have just been stung by the famous cheap Rayban calendar spam issue.

C'mon Apple you need to think these things through. So now any spammer can text a crafted URL to the Apple population and sit back and watch as all the Apple devices go to him and download whatever he has put at that location. So I wonder how long it will be before someone crafts a payload that will Erase your phone, upload your contacts, take a picture, send your location etc etc etc.....

Words fail me.

Forgive the errant early reply.

Allow me to clarify. My primary concern is not whether or not the recipient sees a preview. My concern is the fact that the preview loads on my phone for every link i send. I am being charged for data to load a webpage every time i send someone a link.

I just spent 44 minutes on the phone with apple only to receive confirmation that there is nothing I can do about it.

I have two choices:

1: keep my iphone and suffer the cost of monthly data overages or

2. Switch to android.

This is not a hard choice

I'd like to vote this reply up.

Angle brackets ( < > ) work too, and are more commonly used to mark the start and end of a URL.

Also, as a friend pointed out to me, you can simply prefix a URL with a period.

Example.

.www.humanclock.com

This is clearly not true. I disabled 'show previews' in notifications -> messages. Tested efficacy in messages to myself. Preview still shows up in outgoing message (where it is LEAST valuable - i will NEVER need to see a preview of a link that ***I*** am sending to someone else). The notifications setting change only effects incoming messages.

Yes my ios software is up to date.

Suggestions here -> https://www.apple.com/feedback/

TiredOfNoUserManuals wrote:

This is clearly not true.

Uh, yes it is clearly true.

You may be seeing a preview but you are not sending a preview. You are sending only a link.

Why are you trolling? .. this is unnecessary, and you're wrong about the suggested fix - it is not 'clearly true' that any setting in notification prefs has control over the rich media links that get sent in iMessage.

I agree with julieraax - it is a huge security issue that I've sent to Apple. It's also a hinderance to usability that seemingly has no way to disable from what I can tell. I haven't heard anything back from them yet and don't expect to.

The more consumers send this feedback, the more likely they'll do something about it, so send in the feedback, all:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

Not sure how that solves the problem. That keeps them off the lock screen on your iDevice, but they still show up in Messages on both Sierra and iOS. Seems like a huge security nightmare waiting to happen.

julieraax wrote:

Sigh, this is another huge security issue. I just got sent a link and some random daily mail video started playing on both my phone and MacOS Sierra. And I have just been stung by the famous cheap Rayban calendar spam issue.

C'mon Apple you need to think these things through. So now any spammer can text a crafted URL to the Apple population and sit back and watch as all the Apple devices go to him and download whatever he has put at that location. So I wonder how long it will be before someone crafts a payload that will Erase your phone, upload your contacts, take a picture, send your location etc etc etc.....

Words fail me.

Words fail you? Really?

What's the two paragraphs above?

Settings > Notifications > Messages - at bottom turn off Show Previews

If you enclose your URL in brackets it won't show a preview.

Like [www.cnn.com]

Evin C wrote:

Why are you trolling? ..

Because I'm not.

so send in the feedback, all:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

Why are you trolling?

I posted this link in this very thread 2 1/2 months ago.

The preview is generated by the receiver. not the sender.

Allow me to clarify. My primary concern is not whether or not the recipient sees a preview. My concern is the fact