Link Previews

Link previews turn a pasted URL into a rich, metadata-aware widget that can be displayed in three visual modes:

Display modes#

A link preview can be displayed in one of three modes:

  • Article ImageInline — a pill showing the site's favicon and page title. Use this when you want the link to flow with the surrounding paragraph.

  • Article Image

    Card — a block-level preview with thumbnail, title, description, and site name. Use this when the link is the focus of a paragraph.

  • Article Image

    Embed — a block-level interactive embed. Currently supported for YouTube videos, which render as a playable iframe. For URLs that don't support an embedded view, this mode falls back to the Card layout.

Inserting a link preview#

There are two ways to create one:

1. Paste a URL#

Paste a raw URL and press Space. Trilium will fetch the page's metadata in the background and convert the link into a Mention. Press Ctrl+Z immediately afterwards to keep it as a plain link instead.

2. Use the "Link preview" toolbar button#

Click Link preview in the formatting toolbar to open the Insert link preview dialog. Enter the URL and choose @ Mention, URL (plain link, no preview), or Embed.

Switching modes on an existing link preview#

Click on an inserted link preview to select it. A small toolbar will offer the three modes — Inline, Card, and Embed. The Embed option is only enabled when the URL points to a supported service (YouTube today).

Where the preview data comes from#

When you insert a link preview, Trilium fetches metadata once and stores it inside the note's HTML:

  • YouTube URLs — title, channel name, and thumbnail are fetched via YouTube's public oEmbed endpoint.
  • All other URLs — Trilium fetches the page and reads OpenGraph tags (og:title, og:description, og:image, og:site_name), falling back to the page's <title> and <meta name="description">. The site's favicon is downloaded and inlined.

Because the data is stored in the note itself, link previews continue to render correctly when you reopen the note, share/publish it, or export to HTML — without any further network requests.

The metadata is captured at insertion time and is not automatically refreshed. If the linked page later changes its title or thumbnail, you'll need to re-insert the link to pick up the new values.

Limitations#

  • The Embed display mode currently only supports YouTube. Other video and media platforms fall back to a Card preview.
  • The preview reflects the page at the moment you inserted the link.
  • Pages that block automated fetches or that don't expose OpenGraph metadata may produce a minimal preview (hostname only).
  • Link previews require the Trilium server to reach the target URL, so they won't generate previews for pages on networks the server can't see.