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Image, video and website previews

Zulip displays previews of images, videos and websites in your message feed. To avoid disrupting the flow of conversation, these previews are small. You can configure how animated images are previewed, and organization administrators can also disable previews altogether.

Configure how animated images are played

In the desktop and web apps, you can configure previews of animated images to always show the animation, show it when you hover over the image with your mouse, or not show it at all. You can always see the animated image by opening it in the image viewer.

This configuration applies only to images uploaded since July 21, 2024 on Zulip Cloud, or on Zulip Server 9.0+ in self-hosted organizations. Previews of images uploaded earlier are always animated.

  • Desktop/Web

  1. Click on the gear () icon in the upper right corner of the web or desktop app.

  2. Select Personal settings.

  3. On the left, click Preferences.

  4. Under Information, select the desired option from the Play animated images dropdown.

Configure whether image and video previews are shown

This feature is only available to organization owners and administrators.

  • Instructions for all platforms

  1. Click on the gear () icon in the upper right corner of the web or desktop app.

  2. Select Organization settings.

  3. On the left, click Organization settings.

  4. Under Other settings, toggle Show previews of uploaded and linked images and videos.

  5. Click Save changes.

Configure whether website previews are shown

This feature is only available to organization owners and administrators.

  • Instructions for all platforms

  1. Click on the gear () icon in the upper right corner of the web or desktop app.

  2. Select Organization settings.

  3. On the left, click Organization settings.

  4. Under Other settings, toggle Show previews of linked websites.

  5. Click Save changes.

Security

To prevent images from being used to track Zulip users, Zulip proxies all external images in messages through the server.

Don't see an answer to your question? Contact this Zulip server's administrators for support.