How can I disable links being replaced with "preview titles"?

Vadim Galimov
Contributor
May 4, 2021

In the past week, all links to titled webpages in Trello are shown as titles along with an icon of their host domain – e.g. google docs links show up as *Google logo* Name of Google Document.

I find this feature extremely infuriating since for the purpose of my work, seeing the raw link at a glance is a lot more important than knowing what its meta-name is. Is there any way to disable this feature?

 

UPD Nov 21, 2021: welp, just logged in to find that URLs are now once again shown as, well, URLs! Good on Trello for actually listening to feedback.

 

UPD2 Nov 24, 2021: aaand the awful previews are back. Just what in the world is going on there, Atlassian?

14 answers

15 votes
Michael Barry
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September 29, 2021

Yep agreed, very annoying default feature. Would prefer the ability to manage and allow me to control it how it best works for my needs.

8 votes
Sascha
Contributor
April 11, 2022

This feature is driving me nuts, too. Especially when you have page titles that are much longer than the actual URL. 

When you have a list of URLs you cannot copy them anymore as a whole and paste them somewhere else. Instead, you have to hover over each link and select "Copy Link" from the context menu.

Who considered this to be a useful feature?

Ri ktr
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December 6, 2024

And it's still like this

5 votes
MirceaBurdusa
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July 6, 2022

I second the users who commented before me in stating that the feature doesn't have any utility at all. Moreover, because it cannot be disabled, is actually counter-productive to a lot of workflows that are based on checking and comparing URLs. 

This feature should either be disabled by default or at least should be made editable from the board settings (or even workspace settings). It is really hard to use Trello right now due to this feature and, if nothing changes in the following weeks, most probably I will move to another tool in order to be productive again. 

G
Contributor
July 6, 2022

Yep - it's still making my job way more difficult than it should be.

Add 3 short URLs to a card and suddenly you've just got a huge mess of underline text you can't read.

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5 votes
Tommy Hodgins
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April 7, 2022

This has just happened on our Trello board as well. For our work, seeing the URLs is very important and many URLs with crucially important differences in the URL end up having the same preview title, so you can't tell them apart by their appearance easily once they've been replaced.

If this feature is not removed, or cannot be disabled, Trello may have outlived its usefulness for serious web-related work.

4 votes
afk03
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August 19, 2023

Has this issue been resolved? Please no one wants it. At least make it optional.

3 votes
Michael Barry
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December 7, 2021

I seem to have found a workaround (that's working for me) 

If you remove the "https://" from the URL it doesn't render the preview. 

2 votes
Michael Pryor
Atlassian Team
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May 4, 2021

There isn’t a way to disable this unfortunately. I’m very sorry. 

Sophie
Contributor
May 6, 2021

Hi! 

Are there plans to add a functionality to disable link previews? The feature was newly added, so it should be fresh in your developpers' minds, right? Because wrapping links in backticks, as suggested by Felix, is very time-consuming... :(

Thanks!

Sophie

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Dave
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May 22, 2021

The link previewing functionality is very annoying. Many links seem to not have *any* useful information about what's on the other side from the page title alone. Especially annoying for pages requiring a login that Trello obviously can't log into. I see a bunch of "Log In | [Site Name]" previews that do absolutely nothing to tell me what's on the other side of the link.

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vostapenko
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June 19, 2021

I hope this will be reconsidered. Pretty annoying feature.

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G
Contributor
June 22, 2021

I agree with these guys - as a dev I need to see full URLs rather than META data and find this very unhelpful 

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Michał Zagdan
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October 5, 2021

I cannot copy serveral links from task description because they were converted to useless titles :[ Now have to go one-by-one.

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david.bailey
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October 14, 2021

Super annoying feature and definitely a backward step.

I need my designers/devs to see the exact URLs in the card descriptions/comments...

It's confusing and dangerous when the URL is automatically replaced by a page title (which are not necessarily unique).

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jschaart
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October 19, 2022

Please add an option to disable this option!

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ustp_cz August 28, 2023

Is there a fix now?

ustp_cz March 15, 2024

BUMP.

Is this fixed now?

1 vote
Vedmant
Contributor
October 24, 2023

This is so annoying feature, currently even the plugin doesn't work anymore (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/link-preserver-for-trello/kakifckibanjlglpkbnfdichejplgdap)

1 vote
lalene05
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August 28, 2023

Any updates on this please? Makes my life harder as a developer. Seeing the URLs are crucial in my work.

1 vote
Martinho Riebeiro
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April 24, 2023

When I started using Trello the preview was there.
I was in charge of creating a system for our company and we rely on the opposite issue.
We don't care for the links. We care for the Card Name that showed instead of the link.
Now when I look inside a client's card all I see are a bunch of links to I don't know what anymore.

Before it would show each of the work done for them, butu I can't tell them apart without having to click on them. Annoying.

1 vote
Ron S
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January 13, 2023

Such a simple issue that they should resolve, but....I think I found a workaround.

Instead of copy/paste.  Use Copy and use CTRL+Shift to paste, which will paste it as text.  For some reason, this makes it so that it won't be pasted as a preview and it doesn't look to switch.

vostapenko
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January 14, 2023

Works only with the new editor.

1 vote
Felix
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May 4, 2021

There's a workaround to auto-convert cards from "Link cards" to "Regular cards": add a Butler rule to your board that adds, then removes a label (or a member) to/from the card.

This works, because Link cards can't have labels, members or descriptions.

No promises this will continue to work, but should work for now (we're looking at adding support for Link cards more formally to Butler).

Out of curiosity: why do you want/need to see the URL?

Vadim Galimov
Contributor
May 4, 2021

Oh well, that sucks – since I'm not in charge of my board, I was hoping for a user-end solution.

I need to see the URL because I work with a CMS system for a news website and the URLs include info on which section of the website each article is in. When I need to edit an article, I'll have a quick glance at the link in the card to find out which section to open in CMS. I don't need to know the link title since it's already in the card title (and whenever people post links they describe what the link is, anyway). And in some cases I can just glance the ID in the URL to bypass all steps altogether and quickly open up an edit page. 

Sure, I can hover over the link to see that info, but that's just an unnecessary extra step.

Besides, I just have a general distaste for all QoL "features" that seek to hide what is seen as "technical" info from users and instead complicate the process further. That, and when cosmetic changes are rolled out without adding a toggle to user preferences >:-(

Very much hoping to see this become a toggleable feature in the near future!

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Felix
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May 4, 2021

Oh, so I'd assumed that the links were "Link cards" - is that not the case? Are the links in the card description/comments? If so, you can wrap them in backticks (`) to have them render as "code", which prevents Trello from unfurling (showing the preview).

Vadim Galimov
Contributor
May 4, 2021

I'll be quite honest – I've no idea what "link cards" are and how they differ from "regular" ones :))

Yep, the links are in description/comments.

The code idea is great, though I imagine it'll be an issue getting everyone on the board to adopt that technique =)

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Felix
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May 4, 2021

Cool, thanks!

There's a bunch of info on Link cards here, if you're interested: https://help.trello.com/article/1256-link-cards

 

Note that you _can_ also automate wrapping links in descriptions in backticks with Butler, if you're dedicated enough wink

Vadim Galimov
Contributor
May 6, 2021

I've dabbled with Butler a bit, but wasn't able to figure out how to do that. Would you mind giving me some pointers?

Dave
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May 22, 2021

Many links seem to not have *any* useful information about what's on the other side from the page title alone. Especially annoying for pages requiring a login that Trello obviously can't log into.

 

I end up seeing a bunch of "Log In | [Site Name]" previews that do absolutely nothing to tell me what's on the other side of the link--whereas the actual URL told me all I needed to know.

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Nadia Pérez
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October 20, 2021

How about make this automate wrapping links in backticks in a checklist? I work with a CMS too, and I need check the URLs updates, for example, one by one.

Is possible to do that?

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G
Contributor
October 19, 2022

We've moved to Asana and I must say I'm loving that we can now see URLs again instead of META - such a huge huge improvement on usability.

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0 votes
Saijo October 31, 2023
0 votes
ustp_cz August 28, 2023

Workaround is to install this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/link-preserver-for-trello/kakifckibanjlglpkbnfdichejplgdap and than turn Disable Atlassian Smart Links on. 

I would add very strong quotes around smart...

lalene05
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August 28, 2023

Works like a charm! Thank you.

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