When you share a link through Messages, the Messages app on iOS generates a kind of link preview
The preview does not include a website / link thumbnail, however it does show you what the target link title is. Also, if you are using a URL shortener, the preview will still give you the link page title. However, it does not remove the URL redirect, so you may still receive spam or phishing. The preview doesn't add much protection and it takes longer to send a link because the preview is being generated, so you may do better if you turn off the link preview in iMessages.
Disable link preview
There is no built-in setting in the Messages app that allows you to turn off link preview in iMessages. You have to use a small but simple trick to do it and it can only be done manually. The trick is to add a full dot / dot before and after the link. For example; If you want to link someone to Google.com, you must enter it as follows;
The link will be sent immediately and will not be accompanied by a preview. You and your recipient will not see the periods you added before and after the link. When either of you tap on the link, it will open normally in Safari. This trick will probably work in iMessages on macOS as well.
Obviously, this is not the most intuitive way to submit links. The clipboard allows you to copy and paste links so you don't have to switch to the keyboard to send one, however this trick forces you to use the keyboard. It also doesn't work if you use the share sheet on iOS to send a link.
Why this works is anyone's guess. The same trick doesn't work in other messaging apps that show link previews. For example, we tried the same trick on both WhatsApp and Facebook. In any case, adding the two full stops made no difference and the previews were generated the same as always. This may have to do with the way iMessages reads a link, which means that in the future Apple could change it by making hacking obsolete. Perhaps someone could develop an iMessage app specifically for this, but that would probably add too many steps to the process that most iOS users would be comfortable with.
In an ideal world, Apple should add an option to disable link preview in iMessages.
Date update on 2021-03-18. Date published on 2021-03-18. Category: Computer class Author: Oscar olg Fuente: mundo-tips