Like many people , I tend to use my Mac ’s Desktop as a “ temporary ” file storage orbit ; as a termination , sometimes it gets a bit cluttered . Last week , I make up one’s mind it was time for some spring cleanup , and as I sifted through the file cabinet and folders , I was surprised to get a few twelve Internet Location files — the uniform resource locator bookmark files you get when you drag a connexion from your Web browser app or an email subject matter to the Finder — that I ’d stuck on the Desktop to expect at “ later . ” ( You know what I ’m talking about : You ’re surfing the Web and you see something interesting ; or you get an email from a friend that say , “ You HAVE to check this out ! ! ! ” with a connection to some website that your admirer found specially erotic . You do n’t have metre to look at it right then , so you draw the nexus to the Desktop . ) I was even more surprised to detect that of those Location files , I ’d already gone back and visited more than half the sites — I just had n’t disoblige to delete them from the Desktop . It strike me that I could use a way to deal with “ look at these when I get the chance ” bookmarks .

( Yes , I know that I could utilise a folder in my web web browser ’s bookmarks menu , but managing bookmarks in a web browser is overkill for the form of temporary entrepot I was face for . In fact , I had actually been using a folder in Safari ’s Bookmarks Bar for just this purpose , but I tended to forget the folder was there — it became a billet where universal resource locator go to die . )

In a bit of good timing , a duo days after that cleaning session I came across Enigmarelle Development ’s freeURLwell 1.2 ( ) . URLwell is , quite merely , a temporary storage orbit for URLs . It operates as a oecumenical carte du jour in the Mac OS ten menu measure ; when you want to stash away a URL for after browsing , you just scuff the URL — from a World Wide Web Sir Frederick Handley Page , an email substance , or even your browser app ’s address bar — to the URLwell carte icon and drop it ; you ’ll hear an audible click to confirm the drop . The drag URL will then come along at the top of the menu .

Dragging a URL to the URLwell menu

Choosing a URL from the URLwell menu spread out that site in a raw tabloid / window in your preferred Web browser app . So far , this probably sounds much like any browser app ’s bookmarks menu . But URLwell is specifically design fortemporaryURLs — those you just want to check once . So depend on how you ’ve set your URLwell predilection , the opt URL is either removed from the carte or “ checked off . ” ( By holding down the option key as you select a site from the carte du jour , the opposite action at law will occur ; for example , if you you ’ve set URLwell up so that choosing a site from the fare checks it off but keep it in the card , option+choosing the site will murder it from the carte du jour . And frailty versa . ) So it ’s easy to see which situation have n’t yet been see . The only quirk I ’ve see is that there ’s no elbow room to uncheck a checked item — this would be a useful feature article if you visit an item and then make up one’s mind to inspect it afterward ( again ) .

URLwell ’s menu also bests Safari ’s bookmark — for trail temporary URLs , at least — by including a submenu that allow a routine of utilitarian features for wangle your irregular bookmarker . you could manually add together a site by typing in its name and URL ; export your list of URLs to a text or hypertext mark-up language file ; and clear detail from the menu ( either all of them or just checked items ) . And via URLwell ’s preference dialog , you may manually add and remove item-by-item point , and even grab HTML - formatted links for include on a website .

It ’s important to remember that URLwell is n’t a bookmarkmanagerlike the one establish in your preferred web browser or like Alco Bloom’sURL Manager Pro ( ) ; rather , it ’s intend astemporaryURL storage for keeping situation that you desire to bring down “ sometime ” correctly under your nose so you do n’t forget about them . And for that purpose , I ’ve institute it to be exceptionally handy .

The URLwell menu