Link previews
A link preview (called Peek) opens a link in a floating card over the page you are reading, without making a new tab. Look at a link, then close it and keep reading, or keep it as a tab or a split view.
Open a preview
| Way | How |
|---|---|
| Alt-click | Hold Alt and click a link. On a Mac, hold Option. |
| Shift-click | Hold Shift and click a link. |
| Press and hold | Press a link with the mouse or a pen and hold for about half a second without moving. Releasing sooner is an ordinary click. |
| Keyboard | Move focus to a link and press Alt+Enter. |
| Context menu | Right-click a link and choose Preview link. |
| Search results | Point at a result on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, Startpage or Ecosia. A small Preview button appears beside the title. Choose it. |
The preview card grows out of the link you chose, over a dimmed page. Only web links (http and https) can be previewed. A drag of more than a few pixels is not a click, so selecting text does not open a preview.
Image results on a search page do not get a Preview button.
What the card shows
The card is about 78 percent as wide and 86 percent as tall as the page area. It has a header with these controls.
| Control | What it does | Key |
|---|---|---|
| Back | Goes back in the preview's own history | Alt+Left |
| Reload or Stop loading | Reloads or stops the page | F5 or Ctrl+R |
| Title and address | Shows where the preview is. The address warns Not secure for plain HTTP. | |
| Copy link | Copies the address. Acira says Link copied. | |
| Open in split view | Keeps the preview as a tab beside the page you were on, in a split view | Ctrl+Shift+Enter |
| Open as tab | Keeps the preview as a new tab. It is the same page, with its history, scroll position and form text intact. | Ctrl+Enter |
| Close | Closes the preview | Esc, or Ctrl+W |
Clicking outside the card also closes it. On a Mac, use Cmd where this table says Ctrl.
Turn link previews on or off
Open Settings › Tabs › Link preview and use the switch. It is on by default. The row reads: open a link in a floating preview without leaving the page. When it is off, Alt-click, Shift-click and press and hold behave as the browser normally does, and the Preview button on search results does not appear.
The first time you open three links in background tabs in one session, Acira shows a one-time tip: Preview links without opening a tab: Alt-click a link, or press and hold it. It never shows again once you have used a preview.
How a preview behaves
- Only one preview is open in a window. Previewing another link in the same tab loads it into the card that is open.
- The preview uses the same profile as the tab it came from, so your sign-ins, cookies and ad blocking apply.
- A link in the preview that asks for a new tab loads inside the preview. Pop-up windows are refused.
- The preview closes when its source tab closes.
- With tabs in a sidebar, a small card with the preview's icon slides out beside the icon of the tab, or the Favorite, the preview came from. It slides back when the preview closes. It is a marker only: you cannot click it. Tabs along the top have no marker.
- A link preview is not a tab until you keep it. It does not appear in the tab list or in Rewind.
Limits
- Downloads do not start in a preview. Acira says Downloads start from a tab. Open as tab to download.
- Permission requests from the page (camera, location and so on) are refused while it is a preview. Choose Open as tab to answer them.
- Previews are not available in private tabs or Tor tabs. The Preview button and the Preview link menu item do not appear there.
- Previews work for
httpandhttpslinks only. A link with a user name or password in its address is not previewed. - Previews are not offered in a locked workspace.
Related shortcut
Hold Ctrl+Alt and click a link to open it in a new tab beside the current page and show the two in a split view. On a Mac, hold Control and Option. This gesture follows the Link preview setting, so it works only while that setting is on. See Split view.
Last updated November 8, 2026