How Do You Remove or Replace Links in Forwarded Telegram Messages?

Four things you can do with a link

The difference between de-activating and deleting matters more than it sounds. De-activating keeps the message readable and honest — the reader still sees what was written — while deleting leaves a sentence with a hole in it. Reach for deletion when the linked text is the whole problem, not just the destination.

• Keep it — the default. Any link no rule matches passes through exactly as it was.
• De-activate it — the words stay visible and readable, but they are no longer clickable.
• Delete it — the linked text is removed from the message entirely.
• Swap it — the link points somewhere else, and the visible text can be changed too.

How a rule decides what it matches

Each rule holds a piece of text to look for, and where to look for it: in the address, in the visible words, or in either. Matching ignores capitalisation and looks for the fragment anywhere, so a rule for one domain catches every link on that domain regardless of the rest of the address.

The choice of where to look is what makes it precise. Matching on the address catches a domain wherever it hides, including behind words like "click here". Matching on the visible text catches a call to action however the address changes.

Rules are per link, not per message

A message can hold several links, and each is judged on its own. One post can therefore arrive with a competitor link deleted, an invitation de-activated and a genuinely useful link untouched. That is the point: nothing is applied wholesale.

What it is good for

• Replacing a referral code with your own, when you relay offers.
• Removing invitations to the source channel from a destination you are building.
• De-activating links in a preview or archive destination where clicking is not the point.
• Pointing a "read more" to your own version of the page.

Link handling or stripping formatting?

Removing all formatting also makes links unclickable, but it does that to the whole message and takes bold and italics with it. Link rules touch only the links they match and leave everything else exactly as it was. If your problem is one domain, this is the tool; if it is a source that formats everything badly, the other one is.

Which plans include it

Link handling is part of the paid plans, from Smart upwards. The plan comparison is on the pricing page.