Link Preview Generator

Paste a link and see the title, description, preview image and favicon the page would show in a social card.

About this tool

Every link looks different once it is shared. Chat apps, social networks and mail clients each read the same page and decide on their own which title, description and image to show, and a link that has no metadata usually arrives as a bare address. This tool reads a public page and shows the result in the same shape a social card would use, so you can see what a reader will actually get before you send it. Paste the address, run the preview and read back the page title, the description, the preview image and the favicon of the site. The tool also produces the Open Graph snippet that matches the preview, ready to paste into the page you are working on. The page is fetched by the server rather than by your browser, because a browser cannot read another site directly. Private, local and credentialed addresses are refused, and no account is needed.

How to use this tool

  1. Paste the public link you want to check into the URL field.
  2. Choose Preview link and wait for the page to be read.
  3. Review the card, then copy the Open Graph snippet into the page you are editing.

How it works

The server requests the page, follows a small number of redirects and reads the metadata in the document head. The Open Graph values win over the plain title and description, the Twitter card values are used when Open Graph is missing, and the icon link of the page supplies the favicon. When a page carries no image, the preview simply shows the title and the description.

When to use this tool

  • Checking how a link will look in a chat message or a social post before you share it.
  • Finding the preview image and the description of a page so you can reuse them.
  • Reviewing the Open Graph tags of a page you own before publishing it.

Frequently asked questions

Does the link preview tool upload anything of mine?

No. It only reads the public page you paste. Nothing from your account, your files or your browsing history is sent or stored.

Why does my browser not read the page directly?

A browser may not read another site directly because of the same-origin policy, so the server performs the request. Only public HTTP and HTTPS pages are read, and private and local addresses are refused.

What happens when a page has no preview image?

The card shows the title, the description and the favicon without an image. The Open Graph snippet then leaves the image line out, so nothing empty is copied into your page.

Limitations

The preview reflects what the page returns at the moment of the request. Pages that need a sign-in, that block the request or that render their metadata only with JavaScript show fewer details, and the preview never reaches inside a linked page beyond its first level.

Privacy

The tool sends the address you paste to the Tool Fly server, which reads that page and returns its metadata. No cookies, no accounts and no personal data are involved, and the result is not stored.