Ubuntu – Command to open a URL

command line

Is there a command I can use in Bash that will open a specific URL in the default browser?

Best Answer

There's a command that knows about your default browser:

xdg-open http://google.com

This will also work for every other type of URI (Uniform Resource Identifier), like images - which will automatically open with eog, openoffice documents, and so on, and also on filesystem paths (xdg-open /tmp/foobar.png).

There is also

xdg-email team@stackexchange.com

and

xdg-mime query default text/html

To find out what application is going to be used.

You can set your preffered application by going to System → Preferences → Preferred Applications:

alt text

These utilities are part of the freedesktop.org specification, so you can use them in your applications - and it's going to work on all of the desktops that adhere to the spec.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to open file with default application from command line

I think xdg-open is the command you are looking for.

NAME
       xdg-open - opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application

SYNOPSIS
       xdg-open {file | URL}

       xdg-open {--help | --manual | --version}

DESCRIPTION
       xdg-open opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application. If a
       URL is provided the URL will be opened in the user's preferred web
       browser. If a file is provided the file will be opened in the preferred
       application for files of that type. xdg-open supports file, ftp, http
       and https URLs.

eg: xdg-open index.php

This will open index.php in gedit(if you are using gnome).

If you want to open a url in browser

xdg-open http://google.com

this will open google.com in your default browser.

xdg-open is a wrapper script - it will use the desktop environment's tool (gio open, gvfs-open, kde-open, gnome-open, dde-open, exo-open, and a host of other such tools). It is also installed by default, and very likely to work on past, current and future versions (on the other hand, gvfs-open and gnome-open have been deprecated, and may be unavailable in future releases).

Ubuntu – How to open a directory/folder and a URL through Terminal

To Open Directory:

To open a Folder from terminal type the following,

nautilus /path/to/that/folder

xdg-open /path/to/the/folder

i.e

nautilus /home/karthick/Music
xdg-open /home/karthick/Music

Simply typing nautilus will take you file browser,
```
nautilus
```

To Open URL:

You can type any one of the following in terminal,

xdg-open http://google.com       
google-chrome http://google.com                 
opera http://google.com
firefox http://google.com

If you want to open two URL's at the same time then leave some space after the first URL and type the second,
```
firefox www.google.com www.gmail.com
```

Note:

Linux is case-sensitive, so type the file name correctly.
You can also add an alias to short the command,for example if you need openurl instead of x-www-browser you should edit the .bashrc file
gedit ~/.bashrc
In the bottom of the file add the following lines
```
alias openurl=x-www-browser
```
Save and close the file.
Now you can open URLs by typing,
```
openurl http://google.com
```

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to open file with default application from command line

Ubuntu – How to open a directory/folder and a URL through Terminal

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