USE CASE
Look at where a mail link really goes, before it opens
Before opening a link in an invoice, delivery notice or account email, compare its text with the URL it opens. This guide shows how to do that with Safe Mail Link Check.
Safe Mail Link Check does not decide whether a link is safe or dangerous. It pauses the first click and shows the actual URL, with any relevant cautions about its format. You decide whether to open it.
A link's text and destination can differ
An email carries links that read “confirm your account”, “track your delivery”, “view your bill”.
The words you see can be a company name you know, or a URL you recognise, and the address behind them can still be set to something else entirely.
It can look like this:
The point of the check is to see that address before the link opens, rather than after.
Some URLs are difficult to read
Hovering over a link shows the address, but a long URL or an unfamiliar form of one is hard to judge at a glance.
These are the kinds of thing to look for:
- The words shown and the address they lead to are different
- It is a shortened URL
- An IP address is used instead of a domain
- The link is http://
- It contains an unfamiliar notation such as Punycode
These features do not prove a link is dangerous, and their absence does not prove it is safe. The extension points them out when you click so you can review them.
The same job with Safe Mail Link Check
- 1
Click a link in your webmail. Gmail, Outlook on the web and Yahoo! Mail (Japan) work out of the box, and any other webmail site can be added in the settings.
- 2
The first navigation is held, once. The page behind the link has not opened yet.
- 3
On the confirmation, compare the link text, the destination and the URL. Where they apply, points such as a mismatch between the two, a shortened URL or an IP address are shown alongside.
- 4
Read it, then choose “Cancel” or “Allow this time”. Cancel simply closes it. Allow this time does not open the link either.
- 5
If you decide it is fine to open, click it yourself a second time. That second click opens the link as usual.
These are the three rows the confirmation lists.
The displayed text differs from the actual destination
On unsupported pages, the extension reads nothing and does nothing. It reads only the clicked link's URL and displayed text, without contacting external services.
What this looks like in practice
An email asking you to “confirm your account”
A service you use may be named in the message and still not be the domain the link leads to. Put the words and the destination side by side before it opens.
A delivery or billing notice arrives
The more urgent an email feels, the more likely the link is pressed as it is. See the destination once, then decide whether that page is really worth opening.
The link is a shortened URL
A shortened URL says nothing about where it ends up. That it is one is shown as a point to take into account.
The URL is in a form you rarely see
An IP address, HTTP, Punycode — where a form like that is used, the confirmation says so. Not as a verdict, but as something to weigh before opening it.
What Safe Mail Link Check does
- Holds the first click on a link in an email
- Puts the words shown beside the address they lead to
- Shows the full URL
- Points out formal details such as a mismatch between the two
- Works on Gmail, Outlook on the web and Yahoo! Mail (Japan)
- Lets you add any other webmail site
- Finishes the whole check inside the browser
What Safe Mail Link Check does not do
- Rule a link safe or dangerous
- Catch every phishing site
- Ask an outside reputation database about anything
- Block a link permanently
- Open the page by itself once “Allow this time” is pressed
- Keep a record of what you clicked or where you browsed
The extension lets you check a link's destination before opening it. It does not prevent you from opening email links.
The tool for this job
See the product page for the URL formats it flags, supported webmail services, permissions and privacy details.
Safe Mail Link Check A Chrome extension that shows where a mail link actually goes, before it opens See what it does →