Pasting links copied from Teams into a Teams chat loses the URL Formatting

Question

Pasting links copied from Teams into a Teams chat loses the URL Formatting

Scott Harris/USA 50

It seems that if I copy a link within Teams for a folder, if I paste that link into a Teams chat, the formatted link is pasted, but then is immediately changed from the formatted URL to the fully expanded URL.

Aftter copying the link from Teams, but using the "Copy Link" action at the top of a folder, if I paste the link into an email, the formatted URL remains. I"m only seeing this problem when pasting the link into a Teams chat.

This only seems to happen for links to folders in Teams when pasting the link into a Teams chat. If I copy a link to a document and paste it into the same Teams chat, the formatted URL stays intact, as expected.

Lake, Dan 5 Reputation points

2025-08-11T14:37:04.9033333+00:00

This is a new bug since August 2025. It's worked fine in Teams chat and all other Microsoft products for years. I hope it will get the proper attention and resolved quickly.

Answer accepted by question author

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Lake, Dan 5 Reputation points

2025-08-11T14:37:04.9033333+00:00

This is a new bug since August 2025. It's worked fine in Teams chat and all other Microsoft products for years. I hope it will get the proper attention and resolved quickly.

Answer 1

Ian-Ng 6,125 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi @Scott Harris/USA,

Good day! Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum and sharing the detail.

The behavior you're observing is a recognized feature of Microsoft Teams' most recent edition. Teams may automatically expand folder links into a complete raw URL rather than preserving the formatted display text when you paste them into a Teams discussion, especially if you copied the link using the "Copy Link" option. This typically doesn’t happen with document links, which retain their formatting.

To work around this behavior, you can try one of the following:

Use the “Insert Link” option
- In the Teams chat box, click the Format (A icon) > Insert link.
- Enter a display name and paste the folder URL. This keeps the message clean and clickable.
Copy the folder link from SharePoint
- Open the folder in SharePoint (via the “Open in SharePoint” option in Teams).
- Copy the browser URL and paste it into the chat. This method often preserves better formatting.

I appreciate your feedback and encourage you to use Settings and more > Feedback > Suggest a feature in Teams to report the behavior. Your input helps improve future updates.

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I truly appreciate your understanding and thank you again for taking the time to raise this suggestion.

Should you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out.

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Scott Harris/USA 50 Reputation points

2025-08-01T20:44:27.7266667+00:00

Thank you for the response. However, I fail to see how this is a "feature". Given that every other Microsoft application renders formatted URLs correctly and doesn't automatically expand them, I would consider this a bug. The purpose of formatted URLs is to remove the need to use the solutions you provide above.

Per your recommendation, I will suggest properly handling formatted URLs as a feature, but I would also ask that your team handle this as a bug. If the product team desires to break formatted URLs, I will suggest for them to provide a setting to turn off that "feature".

Kind Regards,

Scott
Ian-Ng 6,125 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-01T22:39:46.55+00:00

Hi @Scott,
Thank you again for your response, I truly appreciate the time and thought you’ve put into raising this issue.

I fully acknowledge and agree with your perspective. Given that other Microsoft applications preserve formatted URLs correctly, it’s completely reasonable to expect the same behavior in Teams. Your suggestion to treat this as a bug or at least provide an option to disable automatic URL expansion is well thought out and aligns with how many users prefer to communicate clearly and professionally. At this stage, the most we can do is wait for the product team to review and respond to the feedback submitted.

If you found my explanation helpful, I’d kindly ask you to consider marking my answer as accepted. Doing so helps other users facing the same issue find the information more easily, and it encourages them to share their own feedback with Microsoft. The more feedback the product team receives, the more likely they are to prioritize improvements in future updates.
Again, I truly appreciate your cooperation and your contributions in our forum.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment”.

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Lake, Dan 5 Reputation points

2025-08-11T14:34:56.4133333+00:00

This is not a feature, it's a newly introduced bug within the past 2 weeks. Pasting a "copy link" from Teams back into a Teams chat has worked for years just fine. It kept the formatting the same as it would appear in Outlook, OneNote, or any other Microsoft product.

Now, suddenly in Teams, the pasted link appears formatted and then is immediately expanded to a huge, ugly URL. People receiving the IM/chat message cannot tell what file or location the link points to since the nicely formatted name is gone.

Your "solution" is not a solution. It's a workaround for a bug. If you work for Microsoft, please escalate this bug. It's not a "feature request" for something that broke after years of working as expected.
Luis Miguel VALENTIN DEL BOSQUE 0 Reputation points

2025-08-18T14:52:29.8433333+00:00

Here is the link to the Microsoft feedback tool where you can upvote if you'd like this to be back to how it used to work: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/163ac763-e479-f011-95f2-7c1e52a55eeb
Daniel Salter 10 Reputation points

2025-08-19T13:41:21.7933333+00:00

I have found that you can paste in the usual way, and then use Ctrl-Z to undo the new 'feature'. This is far quicker than the other work arounds offered above.

Answer 2

Dedman, Michelle 15

Easy fix for this, paste the link in the Teams chat and then undo the action (CTRL+Z) -- for me this leaves the folder name and not the full URL.

Lake, Dan 5 Reputation points

2025-08-19T18:38:28.6333333+00:00

THIS is the answer. Thank you!
Perez, Thiara 0 Reputation points

2025-08-28T17:58:35.22+00:00

Wow, this works great, thank you! For me it only works for links that switch to extended after pasting, then I can "undo" the switch. But if the link pasted in extended form originally, then there no action to undo. I guess for those I'll use the "insert link" option and create a display text myself, which I never had to do before for any link when pasting in Team chat. Thanks for the tip!
Nathan 0 Reputation points

2025-10-16T18:50:36.1666667+00:00

Honestly, the suggestion of using a whole separate subroutine to do this (see "insert link" suggest above) is ridiculous. How much do Microsoft developers really need to overcomplicate simple things like clipboard functionality? Anyway, the best option is using the Ctrl+Shift+V shortcut to paste just the text, no formatting. Real quick and easy. Maybe they should learn something from Linux (that's a native Linux functionality).

Answer 3

Scott Harris/USA 50

Interestingly enough, I went to try out Michelle's suggestion above and found that I can successfully paste a link to a folder in a Teams chat and it no longer is automatically epxanded.

I'm not sure when this changed, but this is the current version of Teams I am using.

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Amit Jain 20 Reputation points

2025-09-11T08:58:48.7366667+00:00

I updated to the latest version and even then when I paste the link it truncates while displaying. This causes issue with copilot studio agent as the agent reads the truncated link and not the underlying link.

Answer 4

Bryan Loveless 5

let MS know you are frustrated and vote to change this: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/14cac86c-1f92-f011-aa44-6045bd7f402a

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Pasting links copied from Teams into a Teams chat loses the URL Formatting

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