How to Stop Automatic Hyperlinks in Word

To stop Word from automatically turning URLs and email addresses into links, open File → Options → Proofing → AutoCorrect Options → AutoFormat As You Type and clear the hyperlink option. This affects newly entered addresses; it does not automatically remove existing hyperlinks.

This guide covers the desktop version of Word for Windows. Menu names and positions can differ between versions.

Turn off automatic hyperlink creation

1. Open File → Options.
2. Choose Proofing → AutoCorrect Options.
3. On AutoFormat As You Type, clear Internet and network paths with hyperlinks. Confirm the dialogs to save the setting.
4. Type a test URL or email address and press Space or Enter to confirm that it remains plain text.

Select the same option again to re-enable automatic hyperlinks. Pasted content may already contain a link independently of this typing setting, so distinguish a manually entered address from one copied with existing formatting.

Remove a link that already exists

Right-click the link and choose Remove Hyperlink to keep the text while removing its connection. Immediately after Word creates a link automatically, Ctrl+Z can undo that conversion.

Commands that unlink all fields can affect fields such as contents or references too. Do not apply an all-document field-removal shortcut indiscriminately when you only intend to remove links. Individual removal and automatic-link settings are explained in Microsoft's hyperlink guidance.

Insert a needed link manually

Disabling automatic links does not prevent manual insertion. Select the text that will become the link, choose Insert → Link or press Ctrl+K, and enter the address. Save the file and check that it reaches the intended destination.