IdeaSift

Messaging users can't control unwanted link previews

Some messaging and social apps automatically expand links, and users cannot always find a setting to disable those previews. This can clutter a chat window or expose someone to disturbing images from an unwanted sender. The evidence points to a cross-app control gap, though the signal about debugging Slack previews comes from a different, site-owner perspective.

For people using web-based messaging and social DMs. Mentioned from Oct 2023 to Nov 2024 on GitHub, Hacker News and Stack Exchange.

4 different people described this problem in 4 separate discussions.

Week of 2026-07-13: 0Week of 2026-07-20: 0Week of 2026-07-27: 0Week of 2026-08-03: 0Week of 2026-08-10: 0Week of 2026-08-17: 0Week of 2026-08-24: 0Week of 2026-08-31: 0Week of 2026-09-07: 0Week of 2026-09-14: 0Week of 2026-09-21: 0Week of 2026-09-28: 0
0 mentions in the last 12 weeks
Indie fit
2.0/10
Pain
5.5/10
Frequency
5.8/10
Willingness to pay
0.0/10
Momentum
5.0/10
Who pays
Consumers
Competition
Medium
Build difficulty
Medium

What people said

Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.

  1. The harassed user is receiving gore/self harm imagery in this way from the harasser. The suggestion would be to automatically blur, or otherwise hide / not generate, the image preview associated with embedded posts / links in DMs
  2. Every time I type a URL in a Google Chat message, Chat fills up the rest of my window with a preview of the website. These link previews negatively affect my user experience, but I haven't found the configuration option to turn them off
    atk on webapps.stackexchange.comMay 2024Asked for a tool
Build brief

See what to build and who will buy it

  • 1 product idea with the smallest useful version and pricing
  • 3 places to find your first customers
  • 2 more quotes from people who have this problem
  • Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks