Cmd + Click behavior

[wcage03]

I used to be able to use cmd + click on links in my email to have the link open up in my browser in the background. Now, whenever I cmd + click a link in my email, it opens the link in a tab in my browser, but it brings the browser to the front.

I used to use this when I would get emails from news aggregators where there were numerous topics. I would cmd + click the ones that I was interested in and continue reading my mail. Later, I would switch over to the browser (chrome, by the way) to read the collection of web pages.

I have searched for this problem without luck. I don't know if this is a change in behavior of the OS, the mail app or chrome. I have gone through all three to see if I can find the appropriate setting.

Of note, this behavior (both old and new) is consistent on my mac desktop and laptop so it is likely an OS setting or a shared chrome setting.

Can anyone shed light on this? Thanks.

 

[IWT]

Welcome to the Forums. Good to have you with us.
It would help to know which OS you are running and on which type of Mac (year might be useful too).

In the meantime, and this could relate to an older OS, I wonder why you cmd + click when simply left-clicking on the Link will open it in the default browser of your choice? As to whether the browser open directly or remains in the background may be related to your settings; but before discussing ways of altering these, we need to know which OS we are talking about.

Ian

 

[wcage03]

Thanks for the warm welcome. First, the OS, up to date on Yosemite, 10.10.5 on both machines. My desktop is a late 2014, 27 inch, retina iMac. My laptop is a mid 2011, 13 inch, Macbook air. They both exhibit the same behavior; both before and after.

The reason that I do cmd + click was that I learned a number of years ago that it would give me the behavior that I wanted. What I like to do when I am reading email is to basically stack up any web content that is referenced to read after I have completed reading my email. Before, I could cmd + click on links in my email and the link would open in my browser in the background and I could continue reading email uninterrupted. Later, I would bring the browser to the front and go through the tabs that were opened. If it was important, I might left click to read it right away, but most of this material are things that I don't want to keep the email as reference and I don't necessarily want to read it right away. The old cmd + click behavior was perfect.

Unfortunately, I can't associate the change in behavior with a specific event, but I think it is probably related to an OS event since both my laptop and my desktop changed. It was something that I noticed, but being busy, did not actually do some research to figure it out. I just thought I had inadvertently changed a setting (may still be the case) and put it off to look for later. Later was yesterday and my search has been in vain.

 

[IWT]

Hullo again. Okay, I now appreciate what you want to do, how you did it before and that it doesn't work as of very recently.

As an experiment, I cmd + Left Clicked on a load of email links and they all behaved as exactly as they used to do for you ie they were "stored" as tabs in my browser and were all there when I chose to open it. Now, I operate OS 9 ie Mavericks so I can't, with authority, comment on Yosemite. Moreover, I use Safari all the time, you use Chrome. Intuitively, a change in behaviour as you describe, usually means either some update change in your OS or in your browser, the former seeming to be the more likely.

As I can't deliver further on your problem, I will have to let others with Yosemite chime in. Just as a thought, however unlikely it might be in the way of cure, have you tried the obvious - rebooting your Mac? Sorry I can't be of more use. Others will be.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

I just tested that on Yosemite and Safari and it works as you wanted it to, opening the links in tabs in the background of Mail. That means it's NOT the OS, but something on your system.

 

[wcage03]

Thanks a lot; that narrows it down to probably Chrome. This is very helpful.

 

[Rod]

This is odd, when I Command + L Click an email link it opens it in the browser (Chrome) and brings the browser window to the foreground just as wcage03 says. I say odd because about a month ago I had the opposite problem. When I just L clicked on a link it would open the link and my browser in the background. No mater what i did it would not open it over the mail client window. I solved this by completely removing Chrome and all associated files with Clean My Mac 3, downloading a new installer and installing a new copy of Chrome. I was not aware that there was a way of opening links in the background intentionally.

 

[wcage03]

Thanks all. I have posted over in the Chrome forum to see if I can get any insight there. If I do (or not), I will update this thread.

 

[wcage03]

Ok. To close the loop. I found this over on the Chrome forum. This one post seems to feel that the Chrome team has changed the behavior to make it work more like a PC does. That said, he points out that cmd+shift+click behaves the way that I want it to for the Chrome browser (e.g. it works like cmd+click does for safari). I have tried it; it works. I would rather it work the way that it used to and that it be consistent with the other Mac apps, but at least I know a combination that works for now. I am posting the link to the Chrome thread for those that are interested.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/Eh2NKitPkDk;context-place=topicsearchin/chrome/mac$20command$20click

 

[IWT]

If I may say so, I think a lot has been learnt here. Between Jake and Rod, and wcage's adventures with the Chrome forum, I for one, have gained. Frankly, I always Lt-clicked on a Link in email and expected it to open it in Safari; but I learnt from wcage that cmd + Lt click saved these Links to Safari for future reviewing. I never knew this. So thanks to all of you. We've solved a problem and learnt something in the process (at least I have).

Ian