webloc is a command-line utility for creating and reading .webloc files. .webloc is the file format macOS uses to store URLs.
- Download
webloc - Mark
weblocas executable (chmod +x Downloads/webloc) and move it to somewhere in yourPATH. - Try running
webloc -h. You will get a permission error thatweblocis from an unidentified developer. - Open System Preferences → Security & Privacy → General and click the button to allow
weblocto run. - Now
webloc -hwill show another warning, after which it should output the help text.
If you're not on macOS or would prefer to build the tool from source, follow these instructions:
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Install Rust:
- On Windows, download and run rustup-init.exe and follow its instructions. If asked to install Visual C++ prerequisites, use the “Quick install via the Visual Studio Community installer” option. You can uncheck the option to launch Visual Studio when done.
- On other platforms, please see the Rust website for instructions.
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Open a command line:
- On Windows, right-click the start button, then click “Terminal”, “Windows PowerShell”, or “Command Prompt”.
- On other platforms, look for an app named “Terminal” or similar.
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In the command line, run the following command. Depending on your computer, this may take a while.
cargo install --git=https://github.com/fenhl/webloc-cli --branch=main
Inspect .webloc files with webloc read, or create them with webloc save.
The syntax is webloc read [<path>], and will print the URL to stdout. If the path parameter is omitted, the script will attempt to read a webloc file from stdin.
The syntax is webloc save [<path>] [<url>]. If the url parameter is omitted, the script will attempt to read a URL from stdin. If the path parameter is omitted, the script will write the webloc file to stdout.
The --xml (or -x) flag can be passed to make webloc save output a human-readable XML webloc file instead of using the more compact binary format. Both formats are equally supported by macOS (and webloc read).