In Google Docs, whenever you paste a hyperlink into a document, the software automatically attempts to read the destination website. If you hover your mouse cursor over the link—or sometimes just click near it—a massive “Link Preview” card pops up on your screen. This floating card displays the website’s logo, the title of the article, a short description, and a thumbnail image pulled directly from the destination URL.
While this preview card is visually impressive, it is a catastrophic interruption when you are trying to write or edit a heavily sourced document. If you are drafting a research paper with dozens of citations, the massive preview cards will constantly pop up, physically blocking the text underneath them and forcing you to move your mouse away just so you can read your own writing. If you prefer a clean, distraction-free word processing environment where a link is just a string of blue text, you must completely disable the Link Preview popups.
Disabling Link Previews via Preferences
Google Docs allows you to turn off this aggressive hovering behavior globally across all your documents.
- Open the Google Docs website and open any new or existing document.
- Look at the main menu bar at the top of the screen and click on Tools.
- Scroll down the dropdown menu and click on Preferences (usually located near the bottom, just above Accessibility).
- A small Preferences dialogue box will appear with two tabs at the top. Ensure you are on the General tab.
- Look through the list of checkboxes for the setting labelled Show link details.
- Click the checkbox to uncheck it.
- Click the OK button at the bottom of the dialogue box to save your changes.
The change takes effect instantly across your entire Google Workspace account. You can now hover your mouse cursor over any blue hyperlink in your document. The massive, distracting thumbnail card will no longer appear. Instead, Google Docs will only show a tiny, minimalist tooltip containing the raw URL and a small icon to open or copy the link, allowing you to edit your text without visual obstruction.