Title: Cardlens – Social Preview Checker Author: matteocardini Published: September 24, 2026 Last modified: September 24, 2026 --- Search plugins ![](https://ps.w.org/cardlens/assets/banner-772x250.png?rev=3710712) ![](https://ps.w.org/cardlens/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=3710712) # Cardlens – Social Preview Checker By [matteocardini](https://profiles.wordpress.org/matteocardini/) [Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/cardlens.0.4.0.zip) * [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/cardlens/#description) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/cardlens/#reviews) * [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/cardlens/#developers) [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/cardlens/) ## Description A link shared with no image gets ignored. This plugin shows you, before anyone shares it, exactly what Facebook, LinkedIn, X and WhatsApp will display for a page, and tells you what is missing. It does not generate Open Graph tags: it checks the ones your site already outputs, whoever put them there. It reads the published page the way a social network does, so it does not care how the page was built: block editor, classic editor, Bricks, Elementor, Divi, a custom theme, Yoast, Rank Math, or nothing at all. If the tags are in the output, it sees them. **Where you find it** * In the admin bar, on any page of your site and on any edit screen, so it works inside page builders too. * As a panel in the post editor sidebar. * Under Tools > Social previews, to check the latest published content in one table. **What it checks** * Preview image: missing, relative path, or served over http. * Title: missing or too long for the platforms to show in full. * Description: missing, too short, too long, or only inherited from the meta description. * Twitter card. * Alt text for the preview image. * Tags printed twice by the theme and the SEO plugin together, naming which ones. * Your site name repeated at the end of the title, where the platform already shows the domain. ## FAQ ### Does it work with my page builder? Yes. It reads the final HTML of the published page, not the editor, so every builder is supported. ### Does it change my site? No. It only reads. Fix the issues wherever you set them today: your SEO plugin, your theme or the featured image. ### A page times out The plugin waits 30 seconds for your site to answer itself. If a template makes its own remote calls, that can take longer. Raise the wait with the `cardlens_request_timeout` filter, or better, cache those calls. ### Why does it say the page must be published? Social networks can only read a publicly reachable URL, and so does this plugin. ### The preview looks outdated Results are cached for five minutes. Use “Check again” in the preview window to force a fresh read. Facebook and LinkedIn also keep their own cache: use their official debuggers to refresh it. ## Reviews There are no reviews for this plugin. ## Contributors & Developers “Cardlens – Social Preview Checker” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin. Contributors * [ matteocardini ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/matteocardini/) [Translate “Cardlens – Social Preview Checker” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/cardlens) ### Interested in development? [Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/cardlens/), check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/cardlens/), or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/cardlens/) by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/cardlens/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss). ## Changelog #### 0.4.0 * Renamed to Cardlens, a distinctive name for the plugin directory. #### 0.3.1 * Housekeeping for the plugin directory: standard direct-access guards, and development files kept out of the released package. #### 0.3.0 * Renamed to Cardlens. The plugin checks what is already published, rather than generating the tags itself, and the name now says so. #### 0.2.5 * Choose how many items to check: 25, 50, 100 or 200. * The screen now says how many of your published items it is checking. * Fixed: titles containing dashes or quotes showed HTML entities. #### 0.2.4 * Slow pages: the wait is now 30 seconds and filterable with cardlens_request_timeout. * A timeout now explains what to check instead of showing a cURL error. #### 0.2.3 * Fixed: the preview window opened but stayed invisible. #### 0.2.2 * Fixed: rows in Tools could stay on “Checking…” forever. #### 0.2.1 * Fixed: on WordPress 6.1 and earlier the interface did not load at all. * Tools > Social previews redesigned: summary counts, thumbnails, progress while scanning and a filter for what needs work. #### 0.2.0 * Interface rebuilt in React, on the copy of React that WordPress already loads. * Duplicated tags are now named, for example “og:image x2”. * New check: site name repeated at the end of the title. * Issues are listed worst first, everywhere. * Fixed: the Preview button in Tools could open the wrong post. #### 0.1.0 * First release. ## Meta * Version **0.4.0** * Last updated **22 hours ago** * Active installations **Fewer than 10** * WordPress version ** 5.8 or higher ** * Tested up to **7.1.2** * PHP version ** 7.4 or higher ** * Tags * [facebook](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/facebook/)[open graph](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/open-graph/) [seo](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/seo/)[sharing](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/sharing/) [social preview](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/social-preview/) * [Advanced View](https://wordpress.org/plugins/cardlens/advanced/) ## Ratings No reviews have been submitted yet. [Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/cardlens/reviews/#new-post) [See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/cardlens/reviews/) ## Contributors * [ matteocardini ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/matteocardini/) ## Support Got something to say? Need help? [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/cardlens/)