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On Windows, I'm very much used to dragging a link from the browser's address bar onto my desktop and having a shortcut created for me for later reading.

I'd like to do this on Linux Mint. It works in Firefox, but not with Chromium browser. I know I can create shortcuts myself (e.g. using Create Launcher), but I like the ease of use of drag-and-drop.

Any idea why this simple thing doesn't work with Chromium?

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  • Can you clarify how you drag a link from the Firefox address bar to the desktop in Mint?
    – fixer1234
    Jun 8, 2019 at 8:30
  • @fixer1234 You drag the icon to the left of the address bar, and it creates a shortcut on the desktop.
    – Gigi
    Jun 9, 2019 at 9:03
  • My FF v67.0 on Mint doesn't have any such draggable icon: i.stack.imgur.com/L8jle.png
    – fixer1234
    Jun 9, 2019 at 9:13
  • @fixer1234: The lock icon is supposed to be it.
    – harrymc
    Jun 9, 2019 at 9:14
  • @harrymc, the lock icon doesn't do anything on mine if you drag and drop it.
    – fixer1234
    Jun 9, 2019 at 9:24

2 Answers 2

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I have this issue with Chromium in KDE. I found that dragging the address itself will prompt you for options, including "link here" which is what you want. It's two steps and names the new (.desktop) shortcut with the address instead of the page title but it works.

Note that when dragging the address, Chrome should highlight all of it. If that doesn't happen, click elsewhere to defocus and then drag from the address again. You can also manually select the whole address and then drag.

Also note that KDE shows the keyboard shortcut for the "link here" option is CTRL + SHIFT. However, that seems to create a local, unformatted copy of the website so it's pretty useless.

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  • Thanks, in fact my solution was eventually to switch to KDE. I did not specify in my question that I was using MATE, and had similar problems using Ubuntu (GNOME).
    – Gigi
    Dec 18, 2019 at 21:34
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This is how I do that on Windows:

  • Launch Chrome and open the website in a regular tab
  • Click the three dots in the upper-right corner
  • Move the mouse over More Tools, and then click Create Shortcut...
  • In the dialog box enter the name of the shortcut for the application launcher
  • Tick "Open as window" for the web app to open in its own window with native controls. Otherwise it’ll just open in a new Chrome tab.
  • Finally, click the Add button.
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  • This seems to install the webpage as an app... which although cool to learn, is not quite what I was after. I simply wanted a way to create a shortcut to a website on my desktop by dragging the icon next to the URL, just like I do in every other browser.
    – Gigi
    Jun 9, 2019 at 9:11
  • I fired up an old Linux Mint 18 virtual machine and installed Chromium. It doesn't work too well, but I can create a link by dragging the icon to the desktop. I was flabbergasted to find that unlike on Windows, this on Linux Mint does NOT create a URL link. Instead Chromium copies the entire HTML code for the page into a desktop file, which is certainly not what you would like. I'm astonished to find that the same also happens for Firefox.
    – harrymc
    Jun 9, 2019 at 9:42
  • My conclusion is that on Linux Mint dragging the icon, even when it works, does not achieve your purpose which is to create a link.
    – harrymc
    Jun 9, 2019 at 9:43
  • What you describe is quite shocking, but with MATE desktop, I can confirm that dragging the icon to desktop from Firefox does create a desktop link correctly. Quite frankly, this leaves me scratching my head. As per comments under my question, perhaps this behaviour is linked to the desktop environment.
    – Gigi
    Jun 10, 2019 at 18:22
  • My Linux Mint 18 uses KDE. From what you say, the result seems indeed to be very dependent on the desktop. Perhaps the interactions of Firefox and Chrome with the desktop are different enough that one works in MATE but the other doesn't. It seems to me that apart from trying out other desktops, your only other option is to raise this as a bug report for Chromium.
    – harrymc
    Jun 10, 2019 at 18:50

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