How do I turn text into a link?

Two ways. Paste or type it into the Text tab above and a formatted page is published at a URL. Or save it as a .txt file first and drop that into the Upload file tab, which serves it as plain text instead of a page.

Do I need an account?

Both routes ask an anonymous visitor for a confirmed email address the first time, a code typed in once per address, and skip it after that. The gate applies to any anonymous upload on Snapy, not just a published page, so a plain .txt file asks for the same code a pasted note does.

Does formatting survive?

Only through the Text tab, and only some of it. The toolbar offers headings, bold, italic, underline, ordered and bullet lists, a link, a blockquote and a code block, and the server keeps exactly those tags and strips everything else, including colour, custom fonts and images pasted into the note. A .txt file has no formatting to keep in the first place; it is read back exactly as written.

Is there a size limit?

A .txt file follows the same 150MB cap as any upload, but the page that shows it only displays the first 300,000 characters, with a note that the rest needs the download button. Past that length the file itself is untouched, only the on-page preview is cut.

Why does my .txt file show as one plain block with no colours?

Because nothing on the file page highlights syntax. A .py, .json or .css file dropped the same way renders in the identical plain monospace block, line breaks kept, nothing coloured. .csv and .tsv are the one exception: those two render as a table instead.

What happens to a Markdown file?

A .md file uploaded through the Upload file tab is treated exactly like a .txt file: the raw characters, hashes and asterisks included, in a plain block. It is not rendered as formatted Markdown on that route. Only the Text tab's own toolbar formatting turns into real headings and bold text.

Text to Link: Turn Notes Into a Shareable URL

Turn text into a link

Paste notes into the Text tab above and get a formatted page at a URL, or drop a plain .txt file instead. They are not the same thing: one keeps bold and headings and the other does not, though both ask for an email the first time.

Two different things both answer to "text"

Snapy does not have one feature called text-to-link. It has two, and they behave differently enough that picking the wrong one is the usual complaint:

Paste or type into the Text tab, above, and a formatted page is published at a URL. This is the note route.
Drop an existing .txt file into the Upload file tab instead, and it is served as a plain file, shown as monospace text on the file page.

Both ask an anonymous visitor to confirm an email address the first time, a code typed in once per address and never again after that. Neither route skips it: the gate on Snapy covers any anonymous upload, not only a published page.

Neither route is more correct. A grocery list or a quick answer for someone else to read fits the note. A log file, a config dump, or a .txt someone already handed over fits the file route.

What actually survives each route

	Paste a note (Text tab)	Drop a .txt file (Upload file tab)
Needs a confirmed email, once per address	Yes	Yes
Formatting kept	Headings, bold, italic, underline, lists, a link, blockquote, code block	None, text only
Colour, custom font, images in the body	Stripped on the server, even if typed	Never existed to strip
Displayed as	A styled page in a card	A plain monospace block in a `<pre>`
On-page length shown	No stated cap below the file size limit	First 300,000 characters, then a download note
Can be renamed on upload	Link name, yes	File name, yes

That server-side stripping on the note route is deliberate, not a bug: the editor's toolbar only offers headings, bold, italic, underline, two list types, a link, a blockquote and a code block, and the server keeps exactly that set and nothing more. There is no control in the toolbar whose result silently disappears on publish, because the two lists were built to match.

Why the .txt route has no colour and no highlighting

The file page has one renderer for anything text-like: a .txt, a .log, a .py, a .json, a .css, a .sql, even a .srt subtitle file. All of them fetch the raw bytes and drop them into the same plain block, line breaks kept, nothing coloured and nothing highlighted. A .md file gets the identical treatment on that route: the hashes and asterisks show as typed characters, not as rendered Markdown. .csv and .tsv are the one exception on that list, since those two are parsed into a table instead of left as a block.

What this will not do

It will not render Markdown formatting from a .txt or .md file dropped on the Upload file tab; that stays raw text, asterisks and all. It will not keep a colour, a custom font, an embedded image or a table pasted into a note, because the sanitiser only recognises the handful of tags the toolbar itself offers. It will not let either route skip the one-time email code for an anonymous visitor; a verified session carries over, but there is no anonymous route around it on Snapy for text in either form. And it will not show more than the first 300,000 characters of a long text file on its own page, though the download button still hands over every byte.

The numbers that apply either way

One file can be up to 150MB. The free plan includes 1GB of storage and up to 400 files in a single bundle. An account can create 20 new links an hour. None of those change depending on which of the two routes made the link.

Host an HTML file or static site, free uses the same confirmed-email code, for a full page instead of a note.
Share a password securely covers the one tab on the same uploader that makes no ordinary link at all.
View a Markdown file online renders .md formatting in the browser without uploading anything, which the file route above does not do.
Turn a Word document into a link for formatted text that already exists as a .docx rather than as typed notes.
All Snapy tools