Is there a way to disable links transformation in JIRA?

[Dmitry Beloglazov]

In the past if someone pasted an URL to a comment section (or the issue description field) it would be displayed as an URL linking to the corresponding page - http://example.com

But recently Atlassian rolled out a change that makes "pretty links" - instead of showing the original URLs it gets the page title and displays it as the link to the page. So instead of http://example.com it would show something like Example Website. It's great that this "feature" hasn't been applied to this forum otherwise I wouldn't be able to explain it :-)

Same thing started to happen in Trello recently.

While this seems to look cool, I often need to copy the comments or descriptions from JIRA and paste them elsewhere, and with this change all links become just page titles.

Even if I edit the comment, there's no way to view its original text with full URLs, so there's no way to get the original URLs other than copy-pasting each of them separately which is of course not very good.

I would really like to be able to easily copy the original comment/description text with full URLs or even better - have this automatic conversion completely disabled everywhere in JIRA and Trello. How can I do this?

[Konstantin]

> Unfortunately not at the moment, this is called "Smart Links" 

please, change this terrible functionality,

Smart Links is a HELL of jira user! I want to have possibility to disable Smart Links feature for my account in jira settings.

[Dmitry Beloglazov]

You're welcome to this thread: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72429

It's frustrating how JIRA team ignores hundreds of disappointed users.

[Lauren Church]

Totally voted for that.... but it was first sent up in July 2019.

Faith this will be addressed = NULL

[Brian Burki]

I cannot think of a single time where I thought, "Wow, I'm so glad that Jira changed the URL I just pasted."

Who thought this was an "enhancement" anyway?

[David Koch]

I dunno, people at the UX front that have to justify their wages ?

Anyway, it has became pretty annoying lately to have everyone trying to embed a "preview" into the documents.

Twitter, Teams, Slack, Gitlab, etc do that as well, adding an annoying preview of the URL, but at least doesn't change it into something that could be obscure.

I'd say the URL transformation shall remain limited to Jira/Confluence links, but not otherwise as it is irrelevant.

And that should be disabled in the user settings. Not at admin level.

[Neil Monroe]

UPDATE: As of July 14, 2022, Atlassian has confirmed they have a solution coming with the ability to set the default state of links for a user.

See: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72429

---

Unfortunately, at this point, there is no official way to do this. To get the effect you want, you would have to install a URL blocker (such as uBlock) into your browser and add the following URLs to the list:

https://YOURSUBDOMAIN.atlassian.net/gateway/api/object-resolver/check
https://YOURSUBDOMAIN.atlassian.net/gateway/api/object-resolver/providers
https://YOURSUBDOMAIN.atlassian.net/gateway/api/object-resolver/resolve/batch

Replace YOURSUBDOMAIN with the appropriate domain for your account.

This is an all-or-nothing approach, so all URLs in content will be rendered as linked URLs and no "Smart Links". Others have suggested this already, but it always gets lost in the comment stream.

Until Atlassian implements a settings option to control it, this is about the only way other than:

• Ctrl-Z/Cmd-Z after pasting (for each link)
• Ctrl-Shift-V to paste without formatting
• Use a code block

[Andrew McDonald]

Thank you for this work around.

[Neil Monroe]

@Andrew McDonald I wish there was a built-in option, but this is pretty universal behavior in Jira now. If you need the link reformatting, then you can disable the blocker temporarily. Note that with the blocker on, links that were previously reformatted will appear as normal links (but will retain the formatting attributes, should the page be viewed by someone else or with the blocker off.)

[Chris Carey]

Thanks, @Neil Monroe you're a life saver.

I use "adblock for Chrome". You can just add the fragments like so:

/gateway/api/object-resolver/check
/gateway/api/object-resolver/providers
/gateway/api/object-resolver/resolve/batch 

 options -> customize -> "manually edit your filters"

... then you don't have to deal with it on *anyone's* JIRA.

[Peter J Lennartsson]

Isn't it funny how every time a company put "smart" in front of the function or product it is actually something idiotic that basically no one wanted or asked for ?  :) 

Thankfully it seems like they are finally listening https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72429

[Jon Beacher]

JIRA please implement a way to disable thank you

[Matt Korostoff]

I've created a browser plugin to disable smart links as a work around for this issue https://github.com/MKorostoff/jira-dumb-links

[Dmitry Beloglazov]

Great! And I like the name of the project 😁

Would be nice to have a version for Firefox.

[John Doe]

Security Issue
It is not "smart" to allow for URL obfuscation. A malevolent actor could mask dangerous URLs to get users to go to the wrong place.

Usability Issue
I am working on a website that generates encoded URLs. I need to see the whole URL that I or others put in the comments.

[ivan]

Here's what worked for me -- as soon as Jira transforms your link into a smart link press Ctrl + Z (or Cmd + Z on a Mac; I'm not sure what the undo action would be in Android/iOS) to undo the transformation and get your original URL back.

[Justin Coombs]

Apparently I can't delete answers.

[David Koch]

You found out a solution for that link transformation thing ?

[Andy]

Not exactly a solution, but I tend to mark the link as code (ctrl-shift-M). That means, of course that it's then not clickable, but the advantage is that you can copy/paste the result into (e.g.) another ticket without it getting messed with.

[Olga Videc]

Hello @Dmitry Beloglazov 

Unfortunately not at the moment, this is called "Smart Links" 

Here is a suggestion for the option to disable it

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72429 

Similar question lot of people share your problem

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-questions/Is-there-a-way-to-disable-inline-links-Bug-report-SmartLinks/qaq-p/1673119

What you can do is when adding a comment, add URL as code block 

BR, Olga

[Dmitry Beloglazov]

Thanks.

> https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72429 

Can't comment there for some reason, it shows a "Communications Breakdown" error.

> What you can do is when adding a comment, add URL as code block 

This doesn't work because I'm not the only one who posts the comment and I wouldn't prefer not to instruct everyone to add URLs in some awkward way.

[Olga Videc]

Hello, 

Can't comment there for some reason, it shows a "Communications Breakdown" error.

You just need to refresh the page, it happens if the comment box is open for too long.

BR, Olga

[Dmitry Beloglazov]

I reopened this page multiple times, same error.

[Olga Videc]

Have you added any URL or code in your comment?

[Dmitry Beloglazov]

No. But probably it doesn't matter much. I see a hundred of angry comments and I hope it's enough for Atlassian to do something about it :-)

[Dmitry Beloglazov]

Looks like I found a bug.

When I opened that URL, I was redirected to this URL: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72429%C2%A0?error=login_required&error_description=Login+required&state=65e12ff6-ebec-41dd-b428-528f3b81148b

And there I couldn't comment.

When I removed everything starting from %C2 and reopened the page I could submit the comment.

[David Koch]

"Smart Links", you can call it all the names you want, it doesn't do what WE want.

Linking to Gitlab from Jira I get a "SAML SSO for EVBox" for every link I post.

Yeah, because it's behind an ID wall and Jira couldn't get past through it.

Just display the damn URL and voilà.

"Smart ass"

[Dmitry Beloglazov]

@David KochUnfortunately they don't seem to care.

You can check this epic thread: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72429

Also you can vote for it.