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Starting in 2019 sometime, Windows Outlook began showing the original URL on hovering over a link in an email message.
Before that, it had only shown the rewritten safelinks version, which is very difficult to read and not at all helpful to someone who's trying to check what's behind that link's display text.
This was a vast improvement, and these days it is essential to be able to quckly check links if people are to have a chance of avoiding phishing traps.
It's particularly important for those users (probably the majority) who wouldn't understand the safelinks URL, and might well assume it's safe because it's a microsoft.com link.
Sadly, though, some time within the last few months my Outlook 365 has reverted to showing the unreadable safelinks URL in both the hover popup and the status bar at the bottom of the Outlook window. I currently have Windows Outlook Version 2404 Build 16.0.17531.20152 Click-to-run.
The safelinks service is good, but there will always be malicious links that get past it, and people need to be able to decide whether or not to click on a link by seeing the actual URL it would go to, not simply assume that safelinks will take care of it.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Using classic Outlook for Windows in business environments
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
The New Outlook still does not show any URL on mouse hover for us. We're not prepared to roll out New Outlook to users until it's fixed. Very surprised this hasn't been fixed yet, considering its potential security implications.
I'm currently using New Outlook 1.2024.625.600 and get zero indication of what a hyperlink URL is before clicking it.
This was only happening to me in New Outlook, but now that I've reopened and tried it again, it seems to be working. I guess the latest update pushed that feature through. Tons of users sent feedback on it missing.
My primary (Hotmail) account works as expected
My secolndary accounts Gmail and dev (onmicrosoft.com) just show the hyperlink placeholder text (Microsoft) not the actual URL (www.microsoft.com/...)
Consider yourself lucky! Still having the same issue here and I reported it to Microsoft premier support, but they still don't seem to care or have a clue. Still waiting on a solution.
I certainly haven't assumed that the problem disappearing from my environment means it has been corrected. It appeared suddenly and disappeared just as suddenly, so could come back!
I am curious about why others are seeing different behaviour, though.
I have MS 365 Family, am on the Current release channel, and my desktop Office apps receive updates automatically. They're at the second-last update, Version 2406 (Build 17726.20160) at present. The latest on the Current channel is Version 2407 (Build 17830.20138) according to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/officeupdates/current-channel.
Perhaps those who are seeing the problem could tell us what their versions of Office and release Channels are? In desktop Outlook, File > Office Account will show this in About Outlook:
I just tried this and it made no difference.