Link that you copied

Chrome Story

Every time you tap within Chrome’s address bar to visit a website or enter a search query, you will see “link copied.” This happens when you have a link in your clipboard. A clipboard is where a phone or a computer saves the last copied item.

This prompt is a new Google Chrome feature on Android to make copying and pasting URLs into Chrome. This article explains how this feature works and disables it if you do not want to use it.

Table of Contents

What does the ‘Link you copied” Do?

How do you copy and paste a link to Chrome usually? First, you will long-tap a link, copy it, open Chrome, long-press, and then choose paste.

This prompt wants to make it a bit easier for you. When you tap within the address bar to enter a URL, if you have a link in your clipboard (that is, if you have copied any link), Chrome will show this prompt. Chrome will automatically paste the copied URL into the address bar and open it when you tap this prompt.

Appears on Incognito Window Too

This seems to be happening even when you open an Incognito window, which is sometimes annoying.

Disable ‘Link you copied” Prompt

Update: This flag is no longer available.

There used to be a flag in the chrome://flags to disable this feature (Clipboard URL suggestions). Unfortunately, this is no longer available.

A Workaround

A workaround that you can do is to copy a word or a letter. When you do this, the link on your clipboard is replaced with this word or letter. This will stop Chrome from showing the previous link you copied.

Do you have any questions? Let us know in the comments section.

Content Developer and Digital Minimalist. I love testing new Chromebook features and writing about them. My favorite Chrome OS Channel is Canary. | Twitter

How to paste a copied URL as a web address instead of a hyperlinked title

You may have noticed that when you copy a web address from the Microsoft Edge browser bar and paste it somewhere, it shows a hyperlinked title instead of the web address. For some cases, this is great – it makes your emails, chats, and documentation look more professional.

For other cases, you’d like to actually see the URL (such as when creating print/unclickable resources or wanting to promote the address itself). Luckily, there’s just a slightly different method to use depending on what you’re hoping to achieve.

Copy/paste keyboard shortcuts to show web address or hyperlinked text

Normally, you can use Ctrl + C (copy) and Ctrl + V (paste). This is what will give you hyperlinked text instead of a web address by default. Your result would resemble NateChamberlain.com.

Use Ctrl + C (copy) and Ctrl + Shift + V (paste address) to show the web address instead of hyperlinked text. Your result would resemble https://natechamberlain.com/.

I prefer the keyboard shortcuts because they can be used everywhere, regardless of the destination app.

Right-click menu options when working in web apps (browser locations)

If you’re not a fan of keyboard shortcuts, you can also right-click to copy:

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Then right-click to paste either option (web address or hyperlinked text). In this menu “Plan text” is the web address and “Link (Default)” is the hyperlinked text with the site/page title.

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Right-click or paste options in other apps (like Office client applications)

You can look in your other apps for paste options like “Keep text only” in Office apps. See the following animation to see two of the paste options action. The first is “Use destination theme” which will keep the hyperlinked text. The last is “Keep text only” which shows the web address.

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You can also find these paste options on the Home tab of Office apps:

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Change the URL copy/paste default behavior in Microsoft Edge

If you want to permanently change how Edge handles copied links, you can go to Edge’s settings and change the default behavior. To find Settings in Edge, click the ellipsis (three dots) in the upper-right corner. Then choose Settings.

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Once in settings, choose Share, copy, and paste from the left-hand menu to change the default behavior.

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How to Copy Link Address Without Right-Clicking in Chrome

Web surfing has become somewhat of a reflex for most Internet-savvy users, scanning through a lot of information on the web in a matter of minutes. There are dozens of apps and browser add-ons made every day to serve this purpose. Today there are thousands of tools that allow you to search, save and share information in the fastest way possible.

Adding to the long list of speed browsing tools is a Chrome extension called Copy Link Address. This extension makes copying and pasting website addresses quicker than usual. Rather than highlighting a URL and invoking the Copy command either from a keyboard shortcut or the context menu, Copy Link Address allows you to simply hover over a link and press “Ctrl + C” / “Cmd + C” to copy the address. You can then paste the link to the desired location as normal.

First, you’ll need to install the free extension from the Chrome Web Store.

Once installed, the extension is automatically activated. You may now copy and paste any link by hovering the mouse pointer and holding down “Ctrl + C” (Windows) or “Cmd + C” (Mac).

In the example below, I hovered the mouse pointer over the anchor text “What Is A Uniform Resource Locator,” then held down the hotkey “Ctrl + C”.

Opening a new tab, I pressed “Ctrl + V” to paste the link as shown in the screenshot below:

If you have a Mac, press “Cmd + v” again to paste the copied link address.

The extension is mostly limited to this function, so it’s lightweight and will not slow down your browser in any way. You can paste a copied URL to any text box, text editor or notepad file.

Once you’ve pasted the copied link, you cannot paste it to another location again. You would need to go back and copy from the source to be able to duplicate the process (unless you are using a clipboard manager).

There is no indicator to show if the copying action was successful or not, and although this makes the extension less distracting, it also leaves a user wondering whether the key stroke worked or not unless he executes the Paste command.

Copy Link Address’s function is highly focused on a faster way to copy and paste URLs, so it’s not an all-around solution for other browsing needs. There is nothing else this extension does, and this is a good thing if you’re looking for a simple, uncomplicated solution.

With this extension, you never have to access the context menu (right-click) again and should have the convenience of copying and pasting URLs all from keyboard shortcuts. Once you get the hang of it, you will see how a small thing like not clicking the right-click button makes such a big difference – in a good way. If you prefer using the keyboard, Copy Link Address is a small yet powerful extension that will make web browsing easier for you.

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Always double-check what you copy from websites

Let’s say you are following a guide on the internet and it provides a command for installing a package.

sudo apt install package

Without a second thought, you copy the command and quickly paste it in your terminal. Now imagine there was a different command in your clipboard, like this one:

This command forcefully and recursively deletes all your files and folders starting from the root directory. If you paste text containing a newline character in your terminal, it will automatically be executed. If your terminal has elevated permissions, because you already executed a sudo command in the same session, it will not ask for your password.

Goodbye precious data!

How can this happen?

There are three ways how websites can trick you into copying something else:

The execCommand method

If you’ve ever copied a command from a website, you may have noticed that some offer a button that, once clicked, copies the command for you.

These buttons use the execCommand method from the Document interface. It is deprecated and can be removed at any time, but for now it is still working.

An example is given below:

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The tricky part is that malicious websites can have that button copy something completely different from what you are expecting.

So if you are on a website that you don’t trust and you use one of these buttons, always double check what is currently in your clipboard by pasting it in a safe place, Notepad for example.

Changing the clipboard data within the copy event

Whenever you copy something using CTRL + C or the context menu, a copy event is fired. A handler for this event can modify the clipboard contents using the following code:

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The code should be self-explanatory but if you want a more detailed explanation I recommend reading Stop Rashly Copying Commands From Websites by Louis Petrik, where I originally read about this exploit. It also includes an example and a link to a browser extension that I have created. More on that in a minute.

Placing hidden and/or offscreen text within the visible text

When you select text on a website it becomes highlighted. You would expect that the highlighted part is exactly what you are going to copy.

The problem is that, in some cases, invisible or offscreen text will also be part of your selection, even when it’s not highlighted.

Some examples that hide text but still allow it to be selected are:

Just to name a few.

There is an example that demonstrates this trick. The commands that you see there contain a span that is moved offscreen.

How to protect yourself?

A good practice is to always double-check what is in your clipboard, by pasting it in a safe environment first. But what if your browser could warn you when your clipboard data is altered? How about a browser extension?

Meet Copy Guard

I have created a simple browser extension that does exactly that! It is called Copy Guard and its source code can be found on my GitHub. By using my extension you can let your browser warn you when a website is using the second or third method.

It injects a script which listens to the copy event. Whenever you copy something using CTRL+C or the context menu, it takes your current text selection and compares it to the data that is placed in your clipboard. Aside from that, it also checks if your text selection contains any hidden or offscreen elements.

A note on cryptocurrency

When I posted my browser extension on Reddit, I was told that stuff like this happens within the crypto community as well, which makes perfect sense. A website could have you copy a totally different wallet address. If you were to send your precious crypto to this address, it could be lost forever.

Something similar happened to a Reddit user once. Although this particular user probably had malware on their computer, it could also happen on the web, without any malware.

Conclusion

There are multiple ways how websites can trick you into copying something different from what you expect.

Always double-check your clipboard. My browser extension can at least warn you when something is fishy, but a good practice is to paste your selection in a safe environment first, before you paste it in your terminal.

At least do this for websites you don’t trust.

Copy Link

The Copy Link command copies a link to the current item (file, document, web page, whatever). “Current” means the item that was selected or open in the frontmost active window when you invoked Hook.

Here’s how you do it:

That copies the link to the clipboard and closes the window.

Here’s what I did in the screenshot above:

Here’s what Copy Link does:

The Copy Link command is a quick way to copy a formatted hyperlink (with its name and address properly set) to the object.

Where you can use Hook’s “Copy Link”

Not only can you use the command in a web browser, you can use it in any supported app! That means you can quickly get a link to :

Here’s what you can do after “Copy Link” :

Once you have copied a link, you can:

How will this change your life?

Hook’s Copy Link command is an extremely significant, quasi-magical, breakthrough in personal computing. Here’s why.

1. Pasting links so you (and others) can get things done

The Copy Link command means you can now paste links to almost anything, anywhere on your Mac, in emails, notes, shared Dropbox documents, etc. This is what hypertext was meant to do decades ago, but was never really possible across apps before Hook.

Before all your documents, notes, emails, etc. were in silos, sequestered from each other. Now you can link them together.

That means you can now quickly get from, say, a task (in your “todo list”, OmniFocus, Things, etc.) to the document that the tasks references!

So you can write notes to yourself or others that contain links to urgent / important information on your Mac (or elsewhere), such as

Yes. Thanks to Hook, with one command ( Copy Link ) you have a well formatted link to almost anything!

That saves you eons of search time. Once you get in the hang of this, you will never look back.

2. Hook to Copied Link in the Hook window

Linking directly in the Hook window means that you can immediately navigate between linked items. Hook links are bidirectional!

There’s more

There are more benefits. We’ve described some here. But just like no one in the early days of the web could understand it without trying it, you’ll better understand the value of desktop links once you start creating and using them yourself.

Before Hook, most people hardly created links

Before Hook, even most programmers, web developers and writers hardly created hyperlinks. Why? Because they could really just create links to web pages or files, and those links were brittle, and tedious to make.

because Hook makes linking super easy, its potential is transformative. It means you can link to web pages more rapidly than ever before, and you can use the same gestures to link to almost anything.

This makes both technical people and lay people much more cognitively productive.

Advanced information about URLs

Calling Copy Link on different types of resources may produce different types of addresses. In the context of websites and web pages, Copy Link will typically produce familiar https:// or http:// addresses (“URLs”).

Hook Pro is highly configurable, however, so Copy Link for any given app can be customized in Hook Pro’s script editor.

hook:// addressing schemes

Links to shared files and to files on removable/mountable folders

Links with hook://file/ URLs can typically be shared between users and resolved if all have access to the same file. However in that case, if the target file’s name changes on a different account Hook may be unable to resolve the link. And if there are multiple files that have the same name as is implicitly referenced by the hook://file/ URL, when you activate the URL (a) Hook may show multiple candidate target files for you to choose from ; (b) Hook could potentially resolve the link to a different file than one expects (particularly if there are several matches, or the target file is deleted and a new identically named file appears elsewhere).

Also in some third party apps (e.g., TaskPaper), when a user uses the “Save” command, that app might actually create a new file (new in so far as the operating system is concerned), as if a “Save As…” action had taken place (i.e., which creates a new file as far as the operating sytem is concerned); this can in some cases lead to false negatives.

In our experience and analysis, hook://file/ URLs perform at least as well and often better than Apple’s Finder aliases (which are notoriously poorly documented). Hook does its best to adapt to filename and folder changes, and resolve hook://file/ ; and we at CogSci Apps tweak Hook’s algorithms from time to time. It should be noted that there is an inherent heuristic element and virtualization involved in resolving adaptive file URLs (and Finder aliases for that matter), and different users (and indeed different software developers) may have different expectation of the identity of files.

Technical information about links in the clipboard

Copy Link writes both a plain text and rich text (rtf) link to the clipboard. The rich text link is a hyperlink and the plain text link is just the URL.

macOS will paste the format which matches the text field, so if you paste into the subject of an email in Mail.app it will paste plain text, and if you paste into the body it will paste rich text.

For example, if you invoke Hook on this web page and use its Copy Link command on it, Hook will put the following in the clipboard:

Related commands

Troubleshooting

If you are using a clipboard manager, you might want to add Hook to its list of apps to exclude from managing. (See this topic.)

Benefits of Copy Link function