Windows Keyboard Shortcut of the Day

Alt+Enter: Save link (Firefox)

Posted in Firefox by estephen on April 14th, 2008

Suppose you’re using Firefox, and you end up on a web page with a bunch of files you want to save. You can right-click on each link, choose “Save Link As…” then click OK, then repeat over and over. What a pain!

Here’s a faster way.

First, press Tab until you get to the link you want to save. (You may have to press Tab quite a few times, depending on the page. One hint is to first scroll down so that the link you want to save is at the top of the page. Or, click on the link and drag down a little bit before letting go off the mouse button, which will select the link without clicking on it.)

Once the link you want to save is highlighted, press Alt+Enter and the Downloads window appears, showing your progress as file is saved.

Now press Alt+Tab to switch back from the Downloads window to your main browser window, or close the Downloads window (by pressing Ctrl+W or Alt+F4).

Now you can repeat: Tab, Alt+Enter, Alt+F4, Tab, Alt+Enter, Alt+F4 — and keep repeating until all the files are saved.

(By the way, in Internet Explorer, pressing Alt+Enter just does the same thing as Enter — it follows the link as if you clicked on it. In many other applications, we saw previously that Alt+Enter opens the Properties menu.)

3 Responses to 'Alt+Enter: Save link (Firefox)'

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  1. Duane said,

    on April 14th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

    Here’s an even better way: there’s a Firefox extension called DownThemAll:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201

    Right-click anywhere on the screen (or for the keyboard-savvy you can use the context menu key) and download every linked file of any type to wherever location you specify. You can batch-rename files as you go and filter file types, file names, etc. with pre-defined categories and/or wild card characters.

    Sorry dude, but I’m not going to repeat the same keystroke combination of Tab, Alt+Enter, Alt+F4, Tab, Alt+Enter, Alt+F4…especially when that combination presupposes a simply formatted HTML page with sequential links that you want to download.

  2. estephen said,

    on April 15th, 2008 at 9:42 am

    Sure, extensions are great (I use FlashGot from http://flashgot.net/ personally) but not everyone likes them.

    The time may come when this keystroke shortcut is useful for you.

    Heck, even if you’re saving just one thing and don’t want to right-click, try Alt+Enter.

  3. using firefox and mac w powerpoint said,

    on June 4th, 2008 at 3:34 am

    […] […]

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