Why does Outlook no longer show the original URL on hovering over a link in an email message?

Anonymous

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?

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48 answers

Anonymous

2024-06-12T16:48:03+00:00

This is horrible for security. Restore hover to see links immediately.
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Anonymous

2024-06-12T15:41:17+00:00

I am not sure if the term "step backward" is appropriate. I think, there whole development of Outlook NEW is some guerila war between oldtimers with screwed up unfriendly (but after 20 years full of crazy bugs quite usable) Classic Outlook, and newtimers but without qualified and experienced developers resources. New Outlook looks like beginners students work, without detailed UI and features planning. Probably MS management relocated developers to other projects and now some unhappy solitude maintainer have no resources to improve it. If I am not correct - where are information about development? Where are the release notes? Why some absolute basic features - (for example download location selection) are still missing? Crazy stupid work! And as we hear rumors about zero AI features support for Old Outlook we absolutely don't understand MS strategy in this product plans.
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Anonymous

2024-06-12T13:00:01+00:00

I'm hoping this is just a bug and will get fixed quickly! To avoid phishing traps, we've been teaching our users for years to hover over a link to check before clicking.

If this is a permanent change, then obviously Microsoft has taken a few steps backwards when it comes to taking security seriously.
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Anonymous

2024-06-06T07:39:51+00:00

Just exactly same story, we started intensive trainig how to avoid phishing manually by link checking (very users unfriendly way) and few weeks later - this destructive change!

"Something is rotten in the state of Redmond". Which one f*king manager manages Outlook team? Poor results, but now very dangerous bug.
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Anonymous

2024-06-05T17:44:36+00:00

The new Outlook in preview is horrible, but the worst is that we train users to hover over urls to see where they go and make decisions, because Defender allows so many phishing emails to be delivered.

This feature needs to be restored. The "Safelinks" concept is interesting, but doesn't solve the gap of "is this a good email? is this a good url to click?"
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