Hovering over an external link lightens the color. However, if the external link has any formatting, such as italics, bolds, strikethrough, highlights, or code, the lightened color will be broken up by the formatting instead of recoloring the entire link. Shown below is me hovering my cursor over “italics”
Disabling all installed plugins yields same result.
Steps to reproduce
Insert any markdown formatting into an external link, then hover mouse cursor over any of it.
Expected result
Entire link color changes
Actual result
Link color changes only over similarly formatted characters, such as only italics, only regular, etc, divided by different formats.
Environment
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: 1.12.7
Installer version: 1.12.7
Operating system: #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:34:01 +0000 7.1.3-2-cachyos
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: none
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: dark
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 3
Plugins enabled: 3
1: Paste image rename v1.6.1
2: GDScript Syntax Highlighting v1.1.0
3: Reading Time v1.1.2
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Community plugins: for bugs, please first try updating all your plugins to latest. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community plugins.
Additional information
Could you paste that example here in a fenced code block to make it easier for folks to quickly copy and test? Thanks!
Of course:
[Testing *italics* in link]()
[Testing **bold** in link]()
[Testing ~~strikethrough~~ in link]()
[Testing ==highlight== in link]()
[Testing `code` in link]()
Looks like a Live Preview issue with a quick look.
source mode | live preview | reading view
Is this a new issue, i.e., did it work as expected before? Or did you just notice it for the first time?
This happens in source mode as well.
I have mixed feelings about considering this a bug. The hovering is segmented because the underling text markup is different and this is important clue for the editor (both LP and source mode)
On the Web, link hover normally changes the whole link regardless of how the text is formatted. That’s what people are familiar with. Maybe the context of editing warrants different behavior, but I’m not sure how changing only part of the link benefits the user and I doubt it outweighs the value of convention.
I think it’s been an issue for a while, but I certainly can’t remember a time where it used to work and now doesn’t. I would guess it’s just an edge case most people don’t notice or care about. I just had the time to finally make a report, there wasn’t any breaking change I happened to notice or anything like that.
Got it.
I just fired up Obsidian v1.8.9 to check, and I see the same in the editor, so nothing new.
