How to create website shortcuts on the desktop / in a folder using Chrome?

Question

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.

Solution 1

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

Solution 2

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!

Solution 3

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.

Solution 4

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!

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

You sir, rock. I couldn't find a better answer even after searching a lot. +1 if I could vote you up :) Thanks.

[Admin]

I mean no disrespect to you. Just edited your answer with more info that suits beginners. I hope you don't mind.

[Keyslinger]

Didn't work for me.

[Bleep Bloop]

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.

[Kalamalka Kid]

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

[Tianren Liu]

This method sets the icon properly!

[Admin]

it works in other browsers too

[Gabriel Staples]

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]

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.