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How do I stop Confluence from automatically changing URLs into link previews

Peter Willis

When I type in https://www.example.com/ in confluence, in a few seconds the text changes to "Example" with a link.

I don't want it to convert URLs to text automatically. I don't want Confluence to grab the title of the page and change how the link looks. I want it to show the entire URL that I typed. If I want to change how it looks, I will click the Link button and add text to it.

Please someone tell me how to turn off this new functionality??? I have to keep clicking these links and selecting "Show URL" every time, it's such a pain!

Accepted answers

All comments

Aron Gombas _Midori_

As far as I know this feature is called smart links.

Disabling it is not possible yet, but here is the corresponding issue with a couple of workaround ideas. You may want to vote and watch that issue.

Mark Eklund

One workaround I've found is to use the markdown backticks. It isn't perfect because it formats `https://www.example.com` differently and doesn't hyperlink it at all.

EP_wev9fm

This is such a frustrating feature. We encounter it in Service Desk mostly, and it serves no purpose but to confuse communication to customers. Thanks for the link!

Steve Pate

On a Mac, let it expand and then hit CMD+z and it will just display the URL

Adam Mlodzinski

I found that I can paste a block of text that includes one or more words (sequence of characters excluding whitespace) that Confluence sees as URLs using "Command+Shift+D".

The full keyboard-only sequence becomes "Command+Shitf+D, Command+V, Tab, Enter", which is a lot more than simply "Command+V", but it's better than having to use the mouse to Unlink potentially dozens or hundreds of words that look like links. Thankfully the dialog that pops up is keyboard friendly.

Kalin U

Same on Windows: Ctrl+Z should undo the automatic URL conversion.

edelwater

This is hyper annoying

I paste in spreadsheet as tables , then have to wait for how long "server lost connection" and then all the urls are icons with "home" which does not say that much.

Matthew Allen_vnl7o7

Trying to work around this myself. Software is trying to be too smart for itself. Make it an option, please. Confluence is prefixing my data with "http://". Totally inappropriate when trying to document DNS records.

And c'mon, it's not even https...

Daniel Wal

Agreed. Just another "feature" of Confluence that makes my life more difficult. I have to click Ctrl+Z every time I paste a URL into a page. Drives me bonkers.

Ben L_7m5pqe

This is now fixed! Hallelujah ;-)

ref. https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-67922, but tl'dr: set your user preference at https://id.atlassian.com/manage-profile/link-preferences

Liz Lomax_xfdvpt

I have a similar issue, where Confluence is resolving text that isn't a URL, into links to external websites.

Example: I have a tracking ID that is "BUD.TC" and Confluence insists on resolving this to be the Budweiser Turks & Caicos website! Which is funny but entirely inappropriate.

I have changed my link preferences, so it now shows the text as typed, but it is still inserting a link to the website.

Is there a way to tell Confluence not to automatically link things at all?

Rob Hartwig

It's now available to disable from this settings page!!!

https://id.atlassian.com/manage-profile/link-preferences

wsmith_uxn5hz

Thanks Yoda...worked like a charm. Productivity restored. Quite possibly the smallest BIG problem introduced to a product primarily targeted toward developers;). Party on everyone.

Dieter Rausch

Smart Links are not compatible with the MS Teams pluign "Jira Cloud" - all you get is a "Unsupported inlineCard" notice. Like that, the plugin is totally useless!!

It MUST be possible for the READER to disable the display of Smart Links by all means - not only for plugin compatibility. An Author (or however you call it) should NEVER be able to force masked URLs in messages or issues!

Youssri

It's not ideal but can do a clean up and bulk convert smartlinks to regular URLs using this link editor app.

Müller Miroslav

Fix not working anymore. In our work environment, our naming convention for documents, use cases and a few other things contains "." as separator. This way, anytime such name is written or pasted, it becomes a non-functional link, which is strongly undesirable. For single link, it can be manually reverted by ctrl-Z, but for pasting a larger text with a lot of links, it is impossible to remove all the wrong links at once.
The link setting page is missing the option for "no link". There is only URL, Inline, Card, Embed. Atlassian pls fix this issue you made!

Stavros_Rougas_EasyApps

This isn't exactly what you are looking for but we have built an app to bulk change links, Link Manager for Confluence. It's editing after the fact, handy to bulk edit for consistently.

Jord Coerse

This issue is reaching a point where Confluence Cloud is becoming difficult to use for technical documentation.

Automatic conversion of plain technical identifiers (for example Txt.Id) into hyperlinks cannot be disabled and actively alters the meaning and readability of the content. This behaviour is not optional, not configurable, and not appropriate for environments where accuracy of technical notation is critical.

There must be an option to completely disable automatic URL detection and conversion.

In its current form, this behaviour should be considered a blocking issue for teams producing technical, database, or engineering documentation.

Jord Coerse

What i mean... all variables are converted to urls as well :
customer.id
randomvalue.id

Barb_eq4ywf

Agreed! It's quite annoying to have everything with an @ or dot in the middle of it turn into a link that I don't want and often doesn't even work because it isn't meant to be a link. I have to manually remove each of these. It's tedious and completely unnecessary. I don't want to use a bulk tool because I very often create links that I want to stay. This should be a profile option.

Stavros_Rougas_EasyApps

@Jord Coerse this is a workaround and requires an app, so depends on how large a pain point this is.

I agree should be a way to disable smart links, I think it would make sense by space. The technical documentation use case is a clear and common enough one to justify the update alone.

Bulk change smart links (display inline) to URL (display URL) in Confluence with Space Content Manager. I'm a maker of the app.

22-03-2026 at 16.05.28.png

Bulk find and replace for URLs is another feature that's handy to manage links. Space Content Manager is a suite of built-in scripts for Confluence content management.

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