Is there a way to put a shortcut to a URL on the OS X desktop. Used to be able to do this in XP, but can’t figure out how to do it in OS X.
It used to be a lot easier to figure out how to do this in Safari, actually, so I understand your point of confusion. I remember that adjacent to the title of a Web page was a small icon that was draggable: just drag that onto your desktop and you’d have a handy URL shortcut saved.
Fortunately, once you know what is still draggable, you’ll realize that it’s still pretty easy to do this. Instead of dragging an icon off the title bar, you need to drag the web page address from the address box. Like this:
While we’re at it, turns out you can also drag a tab onto the desktop:
and you can drag any clickable text onto the desktop too by simply moving the cursor to the link, pushing down on the mouse button and dragging the resultant link onto the desktop while the mouse button remains down:
The end result is that you’ll have some nice shortcuts sitting on your Mac OS X desktop:
By the way, these work in Firefox too, if you’re not a fan of Apple’s Safari browser.
Thank you, I see this is very old but it still works and helped me
Thank you!!! It works!!
Thanks for that. I only just developed a need to have some web links on my Mac desktop and it was awesome to search for the answer and find it here. V. simple and v. well explained.
I don’t know what happen,
I have always dragged the url from safari to make my shortcuts and it always works until today, I tried dragging to a folder, my desktop, copy and paste the addy to desktop, nothing seems to work anymore, it just wont do it and nothing happens, has there been an update to safari that deletes this function??
Well, this works for me– but with one problem. When I drag the favicon out of Safari onto my desktop, it makes a link to the website– but for some weird reason, that link always opens up in Firefox instead of Safari, even though Safari is where I got it from.
I right-clicked on the link and chose “Get Info,” and it said the default application for opening such files was Finder. (?) I changed it to Safari, but it continues opening in Firefox.
This is a problem because Safari is where I have my login info saved for the site in question (it’s Google Calendar, and I use Firefox with a different Google account).
Is there a way to make OSX make .url files instead? The file made by this method only works on mac and I need a method that make files that can be opened both on OSX and on Windows.
Jay, looks like the trick now is to drag the favicon just to the left of the URL in the address bar onto the desktop. That’ll create the Web clip you want. 🙂
I’ve enjoyed this benefit for a long time – however, it doesn’t seem to work for Lion (or Safari 5.1) – any suggestions
This also works with Google Chrome.
Thank’s for the tip man 🙂
This worked for me on Mac OSX 10.6.6:
1) Create a text file on your desktop with the name (xyz).webloc [xyz can be whatever you like (almost)]
2) Put the following into the file:
URL
http://www.google.com
3) Replace the “www.google.com” with whatever website you like.
I have a similar problem. We are about to migrate from XP to OSx on a newly purchased iMAC. The Apple Store will be handling the transfer of files but they are unable to tell me whether the many Firefox shortcuts I have on my desktop and elsewhere will transfer. They tell me that bookmarks will, but they can’t tell me about shortcuts to web pages. Does anybody know what I should expect and how to maintain the shortcuts? I don’t mind them being converted to Safari shortcuts and I certainly can load Firefox for OSx if necessary to enable their continued use. Thanks.
Here’s an easy work-round for links created from Firefox: change the name of the link by opening the info window ( Apple + i or right click on icon then get info ) then editing the Name & Extension (make sure you leave the extension as .webloc).
However what annoys me is that the link I created from a page in Firefox opens stubbornly in Safari, even though I specified to Open with Firefox in the info window. Any ideas ?
Thanks for this page (https://www.askdavetaylor.com/save_url_shortcuts_mac_desktop.html). Just what i needed, as usual it’s simple when you know how, great explanation. Jean-Louis in London
How do I save music videos to my mac desktop so I can download them into my iPod? Thanks.
Gahhh, thank you SO much! I’m a Firefox user and I’ve been dragging the tabs to the desktop for years to make URL shortcuts. You know, so I see them in my face when I turn the computer on and I remember I need to finish something on that page. I updated my Firefox recently and all it does now is create a new window when I drag the tab. It has been driving me NUTS. I don’t know why I didn’t think of dragging the icon on the actual address bar, not the one on the tab.
YAY, now I can make my shortcuts again.
Let me dig into the problem, Steven, and see what I can figure out. To clarify, your issue is that you want to include URL links to Ning groups in your Gmail email, but when you copy and paste, you end up with some weird file:/// sort of link rather than a http:// link. Correct?
I totally agree with Peter (above). Dragging the tabs or URL addresses is tre cool FOR DESKTOP ONLY! (In Firefox)…When I’m in Gmail and want to insert the web address I get a similar crap type thing, i.e.,
http://www.eastvillageperfumedcannibals.ning.com (which is great simply dragged–) now morphs into
file:///Users/storr/Desktop/eastvillageperfumedcannibals.ning.com:%201.webloc
Which is like totally useless as a link!—Suggestions? I’m contacting NING ’cause they referred me to you and this fella Peter’s comment above is more than a year old so obviously you are off selling stuff and not providing any more support herein (apologies if I’m wrong but I doubt that I am!).
The problem with doing this in Firefox (at least for me with v2.0.0.9 on Leopard) is that when you drag a URL from Firefox, unlike on Safari, it names it the www address rather than the page title. For instance, if I drag the url to this page in Safari it is named “”How do I save URL shortcuts on my Mac desktop?” from the Ask Dave Taylor! Tech Support Blog” but in Firefox it gets the lovely name “www.askdavetaylor.com/.” Any idea how to change this behavior in Firefox?
Here’s another cool thing with the icon for a link. Once you have dragged the link to your desktop, find a picture you like and copy it. Click on the link icon (just to select it, not open it). Use the apple key + i (for info) and a window pops up with all the info about that icon. Click on the icon picture and use paste. The icon is now the picture you selected. Too cool!
Thank you, sir, that is a neat trick. Also very cool. 🙂