Change the preview image when you share your link

When you paste your profile link into a chat or a social post, a little preview card shows up: a picture, a title, and a line of text. We build that card from your profile. This guide shows you where each part comes from and how to change it. It's no trouble.

Before you start

You can do all of this on any plan. You need a profile that's published, since the apps that build these cards can only read a live page.

Three things on your profile feed the preview card:

The picture comes from your cover image.
The title comes from your Title field. Title is required, so fill it in.
The description comes from your Bio.

Where the preview picture, title, and text come from

Each part of the card maps to one field on your profile:

Picture: your cover image. We make a wide version of it, sized 1200 by 675, which is the shape social cards expect. If you have no cover, the card falls back to your avatar.
Title: your Title field, the short tagline under your name. Title is required, so the card always has one. If you never set a Title, the card uses your Name as a backup, and "NoTrouble" if both are empty.
Description: the first part of your Bio, up to about 160 characters, with any formatting stripped out.

So to change the card, you change those fields on your profile. The next sections walk through each one.

Changing the picture that appears when you paste your link

The preview picture is your cover image, the wide picture behind your name. Swap the cover and the preview picture changes too.

These steps use the Designer on a computer, where the cover controls live in the left sidebar. On a phone the sidebar is hidden, so tap the cover area on your profile to open the same controls.

Open your profile and select Edit In Designer to open the Designer.
In the left sidebar, find the Cover layer and select the pencil icon next to it.
Set Cover type to Image. To choose a picture from your media library, select the Select button and pick one in the Choose Media box. To upload straight from your device instead, click the cover thumbnail and your file picker opens. To clear the current cover first, select Remove.
Select the pencil icon on the cover thumbnail to open the Crop image box and frame your picture. The card uses a wide shape, so keep the important part in the middle.
Select Publish changes to make the change live. The button reads Publish profile instead if your profile isn't live yet.

For the full walkthrough of covers, see Add and adjust your avatar and cover image.

Changing the preview title and description

The title and description come from two text fields in your profile settings.

Open your profile and go to Settings.
In the Title field, type the short tagline you want as the card's title. Title is required, so type something here.
In the Bio field, write the description. The card uses the first 160 or so characters, so put the good stuff first.
Select Save changes. You'll see a message that says "Settings saved."
Publish your profile if it isn't already live.

The Name field is your profile's display name. The card uses Name only as a backup, for the rare case where a Title was never set, so it's worth giving Title a clear tagline.

Why is the wrong image showing when I share my link?

The card pulls its picture from your cover image, so the "wrong" picture is whatever cover you have set. Select Edit In Designer, open the Cover layer, and check the image there. If it's an old one, upload the picture you want and publish.

If the cover looks right on your profile but the card still shows something else, the app you're pasting into is showing an old, saved copy of your card. That's a caching problem, not a profile problem. The next sections show how to clear it.

My link preview is blank or shows no image

A blank card almost always means the app couldn't read your profile. The most common reason: your profile isn't published yet. The apps that build these cards can only see a live page, so a private profile shows up empty.

Go to your profile Settings.
Turn on Published and select Save changes.
Try pasting your link again.

If your profile is already published and the card is still blank, you may have no cover image set. Add a cover with Edit In Designer, publish, then share again.

I updated my cover but the old preview still shows on Facebook or iMessage

This one feels broken, but it's normal. Facebook, LinkedIn, and iMessage all save a copy of your card the first time they see your link, and they hold onto it for about a week. So they keep showing the old picture even after you've changed it. You need to nudge each one to look again. (X works a bit differently, so it has its own section below.)

On Facebook: Open the Facebook Sharing Debugger at developers.facebook.com/tools/debug. Paste your profile link, select Debug, then select Scrape Again. The new card should appear. If it doesn't, select Scrape Again two or three more times.

On LinkedIn: Open the LinkedIn Post Inspector at linkedin.com/post-inspector. Paste your link and select Inspect. LinkedIn re-reads your page and refreshes the card. One catch: posts you already shared keep their old card. To fix one of those, delete the post and share the link again.

On iMessage: There's no refresh button. iMessage saves the card on each phone, so the fix is to delete the message thread with the old link and send the link again. If a friend still sees the old picture, ask them to delete the thread on their end too, or test from a phone that has never opened your link.

The old preview still shows on X (Twitter)

X has no working tool to refresh a card on demand. It used to have a Card Validator, but that's gone, so there's no button to make X look again. The good news: X drops its saved copy on its own after about a week, and then it picks up your new card.

If you don't want to wait, here are two things that help:

Share the link in a brand-new post. A fresh post sometimes makes X read your page again and build a new card.
Add a small tag to the end of your link. Put ?v=2 at the very end of your profile link before you share it. X reads that as a new link and fetches a fresh card. The link still opens your profile as normal.

Posts you already shared keep their old card, so the cleanest fix is a new post with the updated card.

My link preview shows an old title or description

The title and description cache the same way the picture does. If you've updated your Title or Bio and the old words still show, the app is holding a saved copy.

Update the fields in Settings, publish, then refresh the card with the Facebook or LinkedIn tools above. For a card you already posted, you may need to delete the post and share the link again, since most apps don't update a card after you've posted it.

What's normal here

A few things look like problems but aren't:

The picture is cropped differently than your cover. Cards use a wide shape, so the top and bottom of a tall cover get trimmed. Frame the important part in the middle.
A friend still sees the old card. Caches clear at their own pace, often within a day. Yours may already be fresh while theirs catches up.
The description stops mid-sentence. Cards cut off around 160 characters. Lead with the words that matter most.