Link Previews
What is link unfurling?
When you paste a URL from a supported site into a note, NoteCove fetches metadata (title, description, thumbnail, author) and renders it as a rich preview card inline. This is called “unfurling” — the link unfolds to show what it points to.
How it works
NoteCove uses the oEmbed protocol under the hood:
- You paste a URL
- NoteCove checks if the domain matches a known provider (300+ supported)
- If yes, it fetches structured metadata from the provider’s endpoint
- The provider returns title, thumbnail, description, and author info
- NoteCove renders a preview card in the note
If the domain is unknown and discovery is enabled (Settings → Link Previews), NoteCove checks the page’s HTML for a preview endpoint and tries that instead.
The provider ecosystem
NoteCove supports 300+ content providers out of the box:
- Video: YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, Twitch, Dailymotion
- Social: Twitter/X, Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn
- Development: GitHub (repos, gists, issues), CodePen, JSFiddle, Replit
- Productivity: Figma, Notion (public pages), Miro, Loom
- Media: Spotify, SoundCloud, Giphy, Flickr, Imgur
- Documents: Google Docs/Sheets/Slides (public), SlideShare
The provider registry updates periodically to add new services.
Caching
Preview data is cached locally for performance. You can:
- Refresh an individual preview by clicking its refresh icon
- Refresh All or Clear Cache from Settings → oEmbed
- Cache size statistics are shown in settings
Privacy
All metadata fetching happens directly from your device. There is no intermediary server:
- Requests go from your machine to the content provider
- Cached data is stored locally in application data
- No tracking or analytics on which links you unfurl
- In Paranoid profile mode, all link unfurling is disabled entirely
Fallback behavior
- Known provider, fetch failed: shows an error state with a retry button
- Unknown provider, discovery disabled: shows as a regular link
- Offline: shows cached preview if available, or an offline indicator
iOS link display modes
On iOS, you can choose how links appear by default (Settings → Links):
- Unfurl: single links get full preview cards; multiple links in the same paragraph show as compact chips
- Chip: all links show as compact chips with favicon and title
- Plain Link: links appear as plain text with no decoration
Long-press any link to override the default mode for that specific link.