Things
Links and link previews
A thing can hold a link, either as plain text or as a rich preview card.
Why you'd care
Saving a link with no context is how read-later piles die. A preview gives the link a title and an image, so a month later you can tell what it was without opening it.
The 60-second version
Paste a URL into a thing. NewTwos fetches its title and image and shows a preview. Type text around it and the link becomes part of the sentence.
The shortcuts
| Action | Mac | Windows and Linux |
|---|---|---|
| Hyperlink | ⌘⌥K | Ctrl+Alt+K |
| Strip hyperlink | ⌘⇧⌥K | Ctrl+Shift+Alt+K |
| Toggle link preview | ⌘⇧L | Ctrl+Shift+L |
Going further
Link text and link target are separate. Select some words and add a hyperlink to turn them into the link, rather than pasting a bare URL. That keeps lines readable.
Previews are per thing. ⌘⇧L turns the card off for one link without affecting the rest, which matters in a list of twenty links where the cards would swamp everything.
Some links become players. YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and Maps links can render as something you can actually use rather than a static card. See rich players.
Stripping a link keeps the text. ⌘⇧⌥K removes the link and leaves the words.
Settings that change this
- Settings Lists & <i>Things</i> Show link previews by default decides whether new links get a preview card.
Tips
- Add three words of your own next to a link. Future you will search those words, not the article's title.
- If a list of links has become unreadable, turn previews off by default rather than one at a time.
If it's not working
No preview appeared. Some sites block preview fetching. The link still works, it just cannot show a card.
The preview is wrong or stale. It reflects what the site published when it was fetched. Toggle it off and on to refetch.
Related
- Bold, italic and underline
- Chrome extension, for saving pages as you browse