
Sometimes apps can be too helpful. Beginning with macOS Ventura, Apple’s Mail on the Mac turns pasted URLs into graphically rich previews, and sometimes that’s OK. But other times, the preview is confusing or takes up too much space. Or you may want to send a plain link so the recipient can see its text. There are three ways to avoid rich link previews:
- Before pasting a URL into your message, type a space or any other text. Mail converts URLs to rich previews only when they’re on a line by themselves.
- Hover over the preview, click the down-pointing arrow that appears, and choose Convert to Plain Link from the pop-up menu. (as shown in the screenshot below)
- In Mail > Settings > Composing, change the Message Format pop-up menu to Plain Text. Although this eliminates rich link previews, it also prevents you from including formatting and images. But you can always choose to switch back to Rich Text from the Format menu on the fly.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)
Further help
If you are an existing customer who needs help with this or if you have other questions, or if you are in San Francisco and interested in becoming a client I invite you to book an appointment with me. Otherwise, you may wish to contact Apple Support or find a local Apple consultant.
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