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Help with something really basic, which I am unable to figure out. In Windows creating a shortcut (link) for a website is as easy as dragging-and-dropping the favicon/address bar to the desktop or a folder.

I tried the same in Ubuntu (Chrome browser), but it's not working. The web page is being saved as a file, but not as a link/shortcut.

  • Am I missing something or is there no way to quickly create shortcuts to web pages/web sites without installing some app for that?

  • If the above is true, is there an app that does what I need?

I hope I am clear enough.

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6 Answers 6

Reset to default
10

One possible way:

  • Click the Wrench symbol and choose Bookmarks - Always show bookmarks bar
  • Navigate to the webpage you want to create the shortcut for
  • right click the bookmark bar and choose Add Page and create a bookmark in the bookmark bar
  • (alternatively, you can just drag-and-drop the favicon into the bookmark bar, which creates a bookmark for the current page)
  • Drag and drop the bookmark onto the desktop. This will create a shortcut to the webpage on your desktop
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  • You sir, rock. I couldn't find a better answer even after searching a lot. +1 if I could vote you up :) Thanks.
    – user33877
    Nov 29, 2011 at 23:44
  • I mean no disrespect to you. Just edited your answer with more info that suits beginners. I hope you don't mind.
    – user33877
    Nov 29, 2011 at 23:54
  • Didn't work for me.
    – Keyslinger
    Jun 6, 2012 at 10:58
  • Awesome. Dragging the favicon to the desktop doesn't work for me in Ubuntu 13.04, but thanks to this answer I found out that dragging from the bookmarks bar does! So it's not ideal but CTRL+D, dragging and then deleting the bookmark from bookmarks bar... I can live with.
    – Bleep Bloop
    May 5, 2013 at 10:26
  • I like the drag & drop option, but I noticed that these desktop files that are created can not be opened on Mac OS X ... They seem to be desktop configuration files and not universal HTML links
    – Kalamalka Kid
    Jan 6, 2016 at 0:20
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Open the site you wish to have a shortcut to. Restore the page down. Just to the left of the url there is a little icon, drag it to your desktop, job done! Now you can put it wherever you like. I was using Firefox as the main browser and I think it will work on most, if not all browsers.

enter image description here

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  • 1
    it works in other browsers too
    – user47206
    May 16, 2017 at 13:27
  • Doesn't work from Chrome anymore as of the last few weeks, even though I've been doing this for the last 4 years. Still works fine from Firefox though. I'm on Ubuntu 20.04.
    – Gabriel Staples
    Jan 10, 2022 at 5:35
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This is by far the easier way....

Go to the webpage you want to add to your desktop

Click the menu button in the top right corner and go to more tools

Click add to desktop....

Done!

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  • 2
    This method sets the icon properly!
    – Tianren Liu
    Apr 17, 2017 at 18:26
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I realize this question has already been answered, but here's another simpler way that I found to work:

  1. [In Chrome] Navigate to the website you're trying to put on the desktop,
  2. Click on its URL in the omnibar at the top, selecting the whole URL,
  3. Drag it to the desktop.
  4. Done!
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I created a Google-Chrome "web short cut" on my desktop (12.04) for G-mail by:

  1. Click the Dash Home icon in the launcher and search for Chrome.
  2. Drag the icon for Chrome on to the desktop.
  3. Open a web browser window and go to gmail. Copy the URL. Minimize the window.
  4. Right Click - Proprieties of the Chrome icon on the desktop. Paste the URL at the end of the "Command" field separated by a space. [/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable %U enter the URL here]
  5. Change the "Name" from Google Chrome to G-Mail.
  6. Click Close.

A. If you want to change the icon, save an image from the web of the logo you want. B. Again in proprieties of the "short cut", click the Chrome icon and point to the downloaded image. C. Click close.

EDIT: Forgot the part about the folder.

  1. Right click desktop select Create New Folder.
  2. Rename the folder as desired
  3. Drag Short cut(s) into the folder.
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My solution: use the nemo file manager (sudo apt install nemo) instead of Ubuntu's default of nautilus. Now, in nemo you can just drag and drop links right out of the Chrome/Chromium browser search bar and into the nemo file manager. Done!

Note: to drag a link, hover your mouse then click and drag over the far left side of the bar. Drag to the nemo file folder where you want it. Wait a half-second for it to register, then release. Sometimes you have to refresh the folder with F5 or Ctrl + R to get it to show up.

One caveat to using nemo as your main file manager in Ubuntu is that the Trash bin in it doesn't work properly! So, whenever you want to retrieve something from the trash or empty the trash, just use the default file manager in Ubuntu, which is nautilus.

UPDATE: This works in the default nautilus file manager too actually. I guess I just forgot: either it didn't use to work a few years back so I switched to nemo which did work at the time, or I just hate nautilus since it doesn't have a traditional "Compact" view like in Nemo on Linux and like the "List" view in Windows Explorer on Windows.

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  • Doesn't work from Chrome anymore as of the last few weeks, even though I've been doing this for the last 4 years. Still works fine from Firefox though. I'm on Ubuntu 20.04.
    – Gabriel Staples
    Jan 10, 2022 at 5:36

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