Classic Outlook Desktop mangles formatting when MS specific links pasted.

Question

Microsoft® Outlook® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2510 Build 16.0.19328.20266) 32-bit

Email format is HTML

My question is how to avoid /disable the behaviour described below.
This seems to be a bug.

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Steps to reproduce:

Compose a new HTML email, place the cursor in the body of the email.
Paste the following URL using Ctrl-V.
Note that this URL has been deliberately altered so that it does not refer to the MS Fabric service. This is to demonstrate the correct/expected behaviour first.

https://app.fabric.mxcrosoft.com/

After pasting the link text will have been formatted as a URL and the cursor will remain immediately after the link on the same line.

Press Return and the cursor will move to the next line.

Press Return again and the cursor will move to the next line below that.

Now paste the following URL using Ctrl-V

https://app.fabric.microsoft.com/

After pasting the link will have been formatted as a URL but the cursor will have ended up on the next line.

if watching carefully when pasting can see the cursor briefly move out quite a distance on the initial line with the link before ending up on the next line.

Now press Return.

The cursor moves to the next line, but reply/comment-quote formatting is applied to this line even though this is not a reply.

The text on this line becomes bold and italics and the line is prefixed by my initials which is what I configured as the comment prefix for replies in Outlook Mail settings.

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Impact:

Obviously even the unwanted addition of the line break breaks the flow of email writing if the pasted link was meant to be in a sentence.

Getting rid of the additional unwanted formatting (comment quotes) is also annoying.

For instance, deleting the lines below the link will not suffice because as soon as return is pressed on the line below the link the formatting is re-applied.

The only way I have found is to go to a section of the email with "ordinary" lines, press return there several times to create some "normal" blank lines then cut and paste these below the link, then delete the unwanted quote formatted lines from below them and carry on writing.

Note also that in some cases while trying to delete the unwanted lines results in show paragraph formatting being spontaneously enabled i.e. all paragraph marks become visible.

This change is persistent i.e. starting a new email will have this on. Have to use Ctrl-Shift-8 to turn this off again.
It is also a whole new level of "wrong" for normal text keystrokes to be interpreted as a command.

Obviously, all of this is extremely disruptive when trying to compose an email, and god forbid if your email needs several links.

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Workaround:

Pressing Ctrl-Z twice immediately after pasting the problematic link will return the cursor to immediately after the link and the link remains formatted as a URL.

Pressing return at this point will move to the next line with no unexpected behaviour and further returns will create new lines without the unwanted formatting.

Note this also serves as further proof that additional changes are being made to the email when the MS link is pasted i.e. requires two separate undo actions to get back to the state for a non MS link.

Note that from a productivity perspective this workaround is not particularly useful.

Aside from the two extra keystrokes the main negative is because it requires the user to do this selectively only after pasting a link where MS has chosen to apply the extra (unwanted) formatting. Doing this when pasting a "normal" link will undo desired formatting, plus it is not even clear which MS specific URLs will provoke this, as it is not meant to be happening for Fabric URLs.

This puts the user in the position of trying to train themselves into two different ways of pasting, which would be a hard habit to form. and is a direct reflection of the fact that by choosing to treat some URLs differently MS is forcing the user to also treat them differently when pasting, in order to compensate for the unwanted distinction being injected by MS.

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Also want to note that there a several other common gripes with features that impact links that are not relevant:

Web Link Preview - the feature that adds preview "cards" for links. This bug almost looks like a botched/failed attempt to do something like that, but my understanding is that this feature is not in Classic desktop at all.
Shareable link - the feature that checks permissions of recipients for SharePoint/One Drive links. This also (annoyingly) makes formatting changes to links. However, the link above is not an SPO link.

Friendly links - the feature that adds the title of target page s the text for the link, sometimes referred to as "shortening" (?). This feature is actually useful but does not apply in this case as the steps above are pasting full URLs as plain text and they remain as full URLs when link formatting is applied.

Smart formatting - in this case the text being pasted is converted automatically to a link which is the desired effect but the outcome depends on where the link is pointing so it cannot be any of the various smart formatting features which would not (or should not) be dependent on that.

This bug seems to be some specific additional handling for MS specific links (not just SPO) that occurs in addition to the formatting of the pasted text

It also adds feeling created by many of the "smart" features that I, as the user, do not get to control how my email looks.

In general, most of the "smart" features above end being things I have to hunt down and turn off.

While there are some that I do find useful (friendly links, permission checks) it is still an issue that the user has no control over what formatting is applied.

For instance, the handling of SPO links applies font formatting that does not seem to be configurable.

I think that anytime there is a feature that automatically alters email content/formatting the following two things should apply.

First, that the user can disable the feature.
Second if it is enabled that the user has some control over the content/formatting.

In the case of this issue, I have the impression that this is a bug or possibly an unwanted addition to classic that has crept in from a feature intended for use elsewhere e.g. link preview cards ?
I cannot find any documentation stating that MS Fabric links or similar should be handled differently in classic desktop, let alone anything on how to disable it.

It is kind of sad that we are in 2026 and pasting a link into an email has become a nightmarish tangle of multiple features "fiddling" with the result.

Any advice on how to fix the specific issue above will be appreciated.

cheers

Answer 1

Hi Andrew McDonald,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum. 

Based on your detailed reproduction steps and observations, this behavior appears to stem from Outlook’s “friendly link” / “smart hyperlink” handling, where the editor attempts to enhance pasted URLs for a more readable display. For standard URLs (such as your altered, non‑Microsoft example), this enhancement is minimal or skipped if the site isn’t recognized, so the cursor correctly remains immediately after the link. However, for Microsoft‑owned domains like app.fabric.microsoft.com (the entry point to Microsoft Fabric services), Outlook likely performs additional backend processing such as retrieving metadata or checking integration touchpoints with services like OneDrive/SharePoint/OneLake (Fabric leverages these for storage and sharing). That extra step can introduce a brief delay, visible as the cursor “jumping” outward on the line before relocating to the next line, and it also inserts an extra undoable action.

The unwanted formatting on subsequent lines (bold, italics, and your configured initials prefix) looks like a side effect of that processing. It mimics reply/comment quoting even in a brand‑new compose window likely because the enhanced link insertion disrupts the paragraph style or causes the next line to be treated as an inline response block. This isn’t documented as intended behavior for Fabric URLs and doesn’t align with standard smart formatting rules (which should apply uniformly to all URLs). Also, features like web link previews are not active in classic desktop Outlook (they’re web‑only), and shareable link permission checks are typically limited to file‑specific OneDrive/SharePoint URLs although Fabric’s integration can make the interaction surface look similar.

Unfortunately, there is no granular setting to disable only the friendly/smart link enhancement without also affecting auto‑hyperlinking overall. And because this is a user‑to‑user support forum, community moderators, contributors, and external Microsoft employees participating here don’t have direct access to backend systems or the ability to change product behavior. Our role is to share technical guidance and best practices based on reported issues, requests, and observations.

Therefore, I kindly recommend that you consider:

• Submit feedback directly in Outlook via Help > Feedback.
• Optionally post on the Microsoft Feedback Portal so the product team can track and prioritize it for future improvement.

I hope the above helps clarify what’s likely happening and how best to get this in front of the right product team.

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