Bookmark or save hyperlinks without opening them
Written by Brent Sheets
Jan 29
The next time you’re pressed for time and receive a hyperlink via text chat or email – save the link for later without opening the link. It’s easy to close a text chat window or email message and forget to visit the link, so here’s how to quickly save or bookmark a link with a flick of your mouse.
Most Mac users know to Control+Click or Right Click a hyperlink to add a bookmark or how a hyperlink can be dropped on the Tab bar to create a new tab. But let’s say you only wish to save this link temporarily until you have time to visit and you don’t wish to open the link yet. Then try this.
safari browser
Simply Click+Hold the hyperlink and drag and drop it on the Safari bookmark bar or a folder on the bookmark bar. Safari will elegantly slide out a dialog asking if you’d like to “Type a name for the bookmark.” You can type something meaningful or ignore by clicking or pressing Return.
firefox and opera browsers
If you use Firefox or Opera instead, you can still drag hyperlinks to the bookmark bar or bookmark bar folder. However, Firefox and Opera won’t prompt you for a chance to provide your own bookmark name. These browsers will use the link text or URL as the bookmark name instead.
mac desktop
If you keep a clean desktop, you may wish to simply Click+Hold the link and then drag and drop it on the desktop. This saves the URL as a .WEBLOC file and you can just double click the shortcut to automatically open the URL in a Web browser. Delete the icon later after you’ve visited the link.
If I didn’t mention your favorite browser, don’t take it personally. I only referenced the browsers I work with most often.
