Saving article from browser to desktop, different URL later

When I save something in Chrome, say, and come back to it later, the URL looks like this: file:///Users/janethudgins/Desktop/History%20of%20Canada%20-%20Colonialism.htm
And it can't open it with this. How can fix this? I do a lot of research and this is a real annoyance. I've asked other people and the only answer I get is to use bookmarks only. But that isn't useful for me. I need the URL.

Thanks

What is being saved, as you have typed it, is not a url. It starts with "file:" not "http:" or "https:". and while it sort of looks like a URL, it's only pointing to your desktop, not to the internet.

I can't speak for Chrome, I don't use it, but to put a URL on your desktop in Safari, double-click in the address box of Safari until the entire URL is highlighted, then click and hold on it and drag it to the desktop. That will create what is called a WEBLOC, a Web Location address that can later be clicked on to return to the site, if it still exists.

Your post is confusing in one thing. What does this mean:

And it can't open it with this.

Click to expand...

I have no idea what that sentence means, sorry. Can you please restate it in a different way?

One more thing, Janet. Websites are constantly changing, so even if you have the URL there isn't any guarantee that the page will be there later on. If the content is important to you, you might be better off saving that than saving the URL.

In Safari, to do that, select File on the top bar, then Save As and pick a location for the save. Leave it as Web Archive and pretty much everything on the page will be saved. Pick the location and let it save. Now you can see that page in Safari any time you want, even if the URL changes. I don't use Chrome, but there should be something similar there.

MacInWin said:

What is being saved, as you have typed it, is not a url. It starts with "file:" not "http:" or "https:". and while it sort of looks like a URL, it's only pointing to your desktop, not to the internet.
But, I don't save this myself, that's what's there when I go back to it later on the desktop and try to open it.

I can't speak for Chrome, I don't use it, but to put a URL on your desktop in Safari, double-click in the address box of Safari until the entire URL is highlighted, then click and hold on it and drag it to the desktop. That will create what is called a WEBLOC, a Web Location address that can later be clicked on to return to the site, if it still exists.

Your post is confusing in one thing. What does this mean:
Of course, the article isn't going to open with that chain of words.

I have no idea what that sentence means, sorry. Can you please restate it in a different way?

Click to expand...

I'm going to try your method of double clicking the address box and will report later today.

Thanks. Appreciate your help.

I did this and got the URL but it's tagged on to the end of the the string I referred to earlier. It seems as if other people are not experiencing this so my set up for downloads must have something that causes this. The odd thing is, and I've been asking for a long time, no one has ever had the true answer that corrects this completely, as if this remote oddity is just mine. I've gone through Chrome preferences many times hoping to see something that will fix it. But, it's not just Chrome, Safari does the same thing. Really frustrating because I do so much research and really need good access to documents.

In Safari, to do that, select File on the top bar, then Save As and pick a location for the save. Leave it as Web Archive and pretty much everything on the page will be saved. Pick the location and let it save. Now you can see that page in Safari any time you want, even if the URL changes. I don't use Chrome, but there should be something similar there.

Click to expand...

Did you try this as suggested by "MacInWin"? I use this same method both for Safari and Chrome and it works well. I have articles saved this way sometimes going back several years or more and can refer to them anytime I want. Unless I'm misunderstanding your needs, the above suggestion should work.

Janet, I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding here. Can you post one of the URLs that you say don't work? Not something starting with file:, but http: or https:? We'll take a look at why you are having the issues.

Notwithstanding the technical issue, if you need good access to documents for your research you cannot, I repeat CANNOT, depend on the Internet to preserve them. The Internet is a constantly changing mix of stuff. A perfectly good URL today may be totally useless tomorrow. And a document that is at a given URL location today may be somewhere totally different tomorrow. If your research is key to you and you need the documents, you'll need to store the document on your system, not the URL of where it is today. Think of it this way. Imagine a loosely run library where the books on the shelves are shuffled daily, but the card index is sort of maintained, but not rigorously. You know you need a book, so you find it on Monday in the library index and note that it is in section 1, shelf 3. Now, tomorrow you come back to section 1, shelf 3 on Tuesday and the book is not there. It may or may even still be in the library index because the index changes daily, too, because it is only "sort of" maintained. So what you need to do is to find the book and make the notes/copies you need right then and to put those notes/copies where you can get to them. Not the book location today, or the index, because both of them can move daily, but your own personal documents.

To do that you can either select the entire article on the website and copy/paste it into a document you create in whatever word processor you want, or you can cut/paste/save to a PDF or image file if you just need an image. The bottom line is that a URL for something is very ephemeral and cannot be trusted to work the next time you try to go there. And there are no settings in any browser to fix that volatility. It's part of the Internet.

Hi Jake:
I just went back to my first message as it's all there:
When I save something in Chrome, say, and come back to it later, the URL looks like this: file:///Users/janethudgins/Desktop/History%20of%20Canada%20-%20Colonialism.htm
And it can't open it with this. How can fix this? I do a lot of research and this is a real annoyance. I've asked other people and the only answer I get is to use bookmarks only. But that isn't useful for me. I need the URL.

Again, Janet, that is NOT an Internet URL. That is a file location reference URL. It says that the file you are referring to is in /Users/janethudgins/Desktop/ folder on your Mac and is called "History of Canada Colonialism.htm." But if the file "History of Canada Colonialism.htm" isn't on your desktop, where the URL says it is, then the file location reference is bogus. It's not looking into the internet at all. It is looking at /Users/janeethudgins/Desktop for the file.

Can you describe in great detail exactly how you "save" these references? Exact keystroke by keystroke description. We cannot see your keyboard or screen, so when you say, "When I save something in Chrome," it means something to you but may well mean something entirely different to me (and the other readers here). For example, to save the URL for this particular thread I would go to the address box, then use CMD-C to copy it and then CMD-V to paste it where I want it. When I do that I get

http://www.mac-forums.com/os-x-operating-system/334610-saving-article-browser-desktop-url.html

Click to expand...

which, as you can see, starts with http: not file:. And if you clicked on that reference, you would be brought to this page. (NOTE: The forum software keeps adding the HTML to force the link to be valid, which is why it's showing the "..." stuff. I can't figure out how to get the forum software to stop that, but the full reference is (with some added spaces to food the formatter)):

http:// www.mac-forums.com/ os-x-operating-system/334610-saving-article-browser-desktop-url.html

So please describe keystroke by keystroke what you are doing to save these references.

I've taken a picture of what I do but can't find a way to post it here. Tried posting an image, and dragging it.
Actually, I don't do anything but go to 'Save Page As' and leave the title of the document that is automatically there.

Janet Hudgins said:

I've taken a picture of what I do but can't find a way to post it here. Tried posting an image, and dragging it.
Actually, I don't do anything but go to 'Save Page As' and leave the title of the document that is automatically there.

Click to expand...

That's how "saving a page" works and you'll end up with the file name/location in the address bar. If you want to save the webpage's ULR, click and drag the favicon, the small icon at the left of the address bar, to your desktop.

But if the page disappears from the original site, it won't be there as a "save as" site is, and will be saved to your Mac.

Make sense…???

I don't use Chrome, but in Safari, to save the content of a URL, you select File on the top bar, then Save As and this window pops up:


Then click save and on the location chosen to save appears a new file icon:



When you double click that icon, Safari opens and displays the article. That's how it works. If as pm-r says, all you want is the URL just do as he said, click and drag the address bar favicon to the desktop. But also as he says, there is no guarantee that the URL will still be valid even 10 minutes later because the creator of that site has full freedom to change, amend, delete, move, etc, that file at that location.

I wish that were so but as I keep trying to say I get the string I included above, not the title nor the name/location. And the Favicon doesn't offer anything to save with. Also, I have never 'lost' a page, none have ever disappeared, and I 've never had something change its address.
I'd give up and keep on living with it but it uses time I don't have as I have to search for it again with Google or go back through my History, if it isn't too late.

I wish that were so but as I keep trying to say I get the string I included above,

Click to expand...

Considering this "problem" has been going on for almost a month now, what about trying a different browser, say Safari or Firefox and see if things or the suggestions don't help and improve things for you.

Or maybe I at least am not understanding your problem properly. I also hardly ever use Chrome and that may be because it doesn't work for me the way I'd want a browser to work.

EDIT:
Just thought these might help:
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95739?hl=en
http://etc.usf.edu/techease/mac/internet/how-do-i-bookmark-a-site-i-like-so-i-can-view-it-later/
or maybe this and forget any bookmarking:
Forget Bookmarking! Save Pages To Read Later Offline With Read Later Fast [Chrome]
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/forget-bookmarking-save-pages-read-offline-read-fast-chrome/

I think I mentioned earlier that Safari does the same thing.

Janet Hudgins said:

I think I mentioned earlier that Safari does the same thing.

Click to expand...

I guess I just don't understand the problems you're having and how you use your browser to do your research.

Sure hope you find a solution sometime, somewhere… and sorry I couldn't help you or provide a suggestion that might have worked.



- Patrick
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Janet Hudgins said:

Hi Jake:
I just went back to my first message as it's all there:
When I save something in Chrome, say, and come back to it later, the URL looks like this: file:///Users/janethudgins/Desktop/History%20of%20Canada%20-%20Colonialism.htm
And it can't open it with this. How can fix this? I do a lot of research and this is a real annoyance. I've asked other people and the only answer I get is to use bookmarks only. But that isn't useful for me. I need the URL.

Click to expand...

When you save a link in Chrome, how are you saving the link? Do you go to File > Save Page as, and then click save when the dialog box comes up? See image below

In my image, I saved the file as HTML to my desktop and everything worked fine. Does your file save correctly at first and then change after a sleep/shutdown/restart?

Janet, here is a step by step process to follow:

1. Find the document you want on the Internet using whatever browser you want.
2. Click and hold on the favicon, drag it to the desktop. When you drop it, an icon should appear with WEBLOC in the icon. That's the URL.
3. Now use the menu system to save the document. In Safari, that's "File/Save As" and name it whatever you want, then "Save." When you do that a new icon will appear in the location you saved it to with the name you gave it.

Now, the first icon with WEBLOC is the actual URL of the site. Clicking there will take you back to the actual site, every time. The second icon is the document, clicking there will open the file (The one with file:/// in the header) of the actual document. Be aware that the URL icon (the one with WEBLOC) may not work the next time you try it as the Internet is not a fixed environment, as we've discussed before. But it will be the URL for the site at the time you saved the webloc file.

Hope that helps.

Yayy. It works! So, saving with the browser's 'Save as...' is the problem. Had no idea.

But here's the odd thing. I'm using Chrome and the pages are saving in Safari. The item is on my desktop with the Safari icon, not Chrome.

This is a great thing for me and I can't thank you enough, Jake, even if the browsers are mixed up.

Thanks
Janet

Apple defaults to Safari as the browser, so the saved weblocs all open Safari. You can change the default in System Preferences/General. I don't know if that will change the webloc default, but it's worth a try if you are committed to Chrome.