Show preview on hover over external link (e.g. to a webpage)

Feature requests
1

inspiration

Already works e.g. within Wikipedia or in Obsidian for internal links.

details

  • Show popup preview in preview mode on hover and preferably also in edit mode on Ctrl+hover.
  • Option to quickly and/or automatically disable it when wanting to save mobile data.

related feature requests and solutions:

28 Likes
2

Use case or problem

Obsidian’s web viewer allows opening external webpages within notes, but it requires clicking the link to view the content, which interrupts the workflow.

Proposed solution

Enable hover previews for external URLs, similar to internal note links. When hovering over an external link, Obsidian would display a live preview of the webpage within the note, allowing users to quickly assess content without leaving their current context. Additionally, pressing the CTRL key while hovering over an external link would open the webpage in a separate pane, similar to the current behavior for internal links.

Current workaround (optional)

Currently, users must click external links to view content, which can disrupt the workflow. Or install Community Plugin : Surfing .

Related feature requests (optional)

Discussions on hover previews for external links have been ongoing, such as the “Show preview on hover over external link” thread [edit: NOW we in the thread itself, very nice] on the Obsidian Forum.

The Surfing plugin implements hover previews for external links by triggering the core Page Preview plugin’s hover-link event when hovering over a link. This approach allows other plugins to easily trigger hover popover previews of external links powered by Surfing.