Aug 10, 2026

Why Claude Cowork Gmail Links Become google.com/url Redirects

If a Claude Cowork-created Gmail draft changes a normal hyperlink into a long google.com/url?... address—or exposes broken URL[...] text—do not send the draft until you inspect its actual link target. Replace the malformed hyperlink with the original destination, test it in a new browser tab, and use plain URLs in Cowork until the generated-link path behaves consistently.

This is not merely theoretical. In June and July 2026, several users reported that hyperlinks in Cowork-generated Gmail drafts suddenly began arriving as Google redirect URLs, while links typed directly into Gmail remained normal. The complaint thread includes multiple confirmations.

First: determine whether the redirect is ugly or actually broken

Google sometimes wraps outbound links in a redirect such as:

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://example.com/page&...

That can look alarming while still resolving to the correct destination. The dangerous version is a malformed link where:

the original URL appears in the visible text but not the clickable destination;
extra characters such as brackets, backticks, or URL become part of the address;
the q= destination is missing, truncated, or encoded incorrectly;
the link opens a Google warning, an unrelated page, or a 404;
the recipient sees the raw redirect markup instead of a clickable label.

In Gmail, hover over the hyperlink on desktop and inspect the destination shown by the browser. Then open it in a private window before sending the message.

The safest immediate fix

Return to the original source of the link.
Copy the full canonical URL from the browser address bar.
Remove the Cowork-generated hyperlink from the Gmail draft.
Paste the canonical URL as plain text.
Open the pasted URL in a new tab.
Send a test message to yourself.
Inspect the received message on both desktop and mobile.

This sacrifices a polished anchor such as “View the proposal,” but it preserves the destination. Reliability matters more than pretty link text in an email you cannot recall.

Prompt Claude to preserve URLs literally

When asking Cowork to create the draft, supply the destination and a strict instruction:

Create a Gmail draft using the exact URL below. Do not shorten, rewrite, wrap, encode, track, or replace it. Show the full URL as plain text and repeat the final destination in your response before creating the draft.

https://example.com/proposals/123

Then compare the URL in Claude’s response with the URL inside the actual Gmail draft. A correct URL in chat does not prove the Gmail draft preserved it.

Avoid these “fixes”

Do not disable Gmail or browser phishing protection simply to make a generated link look cleaner. A malformed draft should be corrected at the source.
Do not trust visible anchor text. “Open the document” can point somewhere entirely different.
Do not send the whole batch after testing one draft. Inspect multiple generated messages if Cowork created them in bulk.
Do not remove every query parameter blindly. Some legitimate destinations require tokens or parameters to open the intended resource.
Do not assume the recipient sees what you see in the composer. Always test the received email.

Why this can happen

The public reports do not establish one confirmed root cause. The transformation could occur while Cowork formats the draft, while the Gmail integration serializes its HTML, or while Google applies link-safety handling. The useful clue is comparative: affected users say manually pasted Gmail links remain normal while Cowork-generated draft links change.

That means the best diagnostic is an A/B test:

Test	What it tells you
Same URL pasted manually into Gmail	Whether Gmail wraps all links in your environment
Same URL added through Cowork	Whether the generated-draft path triggers the problem
Plain-text URL through Cowork	Whether rich hyperlink formatting is the trigger
Draft to yourself	What the recipient actually receives

A safer workflow for recurring email

Claude’s native Gmail connector creates drafts; it does not send them automatically. That manual review is useful while links are unreliable, but it also means every recurring email still ends in your Drafts folder.

For a repeatable workflow, connect Gmail to Carly, define the allowed destination domains or exact URL source, and test the message before enabling sending. Carly can run the email workflow on a schedule or trigger and route anything outside the approved pattern for review. The important control is not “AI generated this”; it is the workflow validates the destination before the message leaves.

Frequently asked questions

Is every `google.com/url` link malicious?

No. Google redirect links are not automatically malicious. The issue is whether the q= destination is the URL you intended and whether the final link works for the recipient.

Is this a ChatGPT problem too?

The clearest recent public reports concern Claude Cowork-generated Gmail drafts. Other AI tools can generate incorrect or malformed URLs, but do not assume the same integration bug without reproducing it.

Can Claude send the corrected Gmail message?

Claude’s native Gmail connection creates a draft for you to review and send manually. See Can Claude send emails? for the current surface-by-surface limits.

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