How AutoMagic works
When you paste a link, AutoMagic reads the preview tags the shop puts on its product page, the same ones behind link previews in Messages, and fills in the name, price and photo from them.
What happens when you paste a link
We visit the page
AutoMagic opens the shop’s page the way your browser would, and reads it.
We look for its preview tags
Most shops tuck a few lines into the page that describe it: the product’s name, its photo, often its price. They’re the same tags that build the little preview when you paste a link into Messages or Slack.
You pick what fits
Everything we find shows up in the box under the link. Pick a different name, price or photo there to use it instead.
Why some links come back empty
The page has no tags
Without them a page is just a page. Every shop is laid out differently, so guessing which product is the main one rarely goes well, and we’d rather show nothing than the wrong thing.
The shop keeps readers out
Some big shops block anything that reads their pages automatically, mostly to keep price-watching bots away. That blocks us too.
Now and then it’s on our side. Then the box says Couldn’t read this link (on a computer, Couldn’t read and the shop’s name), and the sparkle at the left of the link tries again.
When that happens
Type the name and price yourself, and use Search the web or Upload for a photo. The link is saved either way, so whoever buys it can still go straight to the shop.
More on links that don’t fill inFun fact: The most common set of these tags, the Open Graph protocol, was made by Facebook in 2010 so shared links could show a picture and a title.
