HTML links to local network shares

Question

Why do these links not work? If I click on them in FF or Chrome, nothing happens - it doesn't even try to open them!

<a href="file://someshare/dir/subdir/file.txt">Linky</a>
<a href="file:////someshare/dir/subdir/file.txt"> Linky</a>
<a href="file://\\someshare\dir\subdir\file.txt">Linky</a>

Any ideas?

@Mauris: the file protocol works just fine on FF, just not for links from pages served over HTTP. — NickFitz, Sep 23 '09 at 16:39

score 16 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:31

16

In general, this is disabled because it is a security risk. See also this question: Cross-browser link to file on local system, and the link provided by sleske to here.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:31

Community

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answered Sep 23 '09 at 09:49

Peter

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The link provided by sleske is gone. @Sean O has an answer below – Mark Lakata Jul 03 '13 at 17:10

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered May 23 '11 at 13:19

4

This is an oldie, but goodie -- still comes up quite often.

There are extensions for both browsers (FireFox & Chrome) that can allow you to access local links:

Chrome - Locallink

Firefox - LocalLink

answered May 23 '11 at 13:19

Sean O

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This works. :) is there any other way that I can convert the NFS path to a HTTP link?? – Harish Talanki Mar 19 '15 at 06:32
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Both links are broken. – Patrick Dec 07 '18 at 16:32

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 23 '09 at 16:41

Peter's got the answer, but FYI you should find something like the following in FF's Error Console (available from the Tools menu):

Security Error: Content at http://localhost/temp/a.html may not load or link to file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/zzzzzzzz/My%20Documents/www/temp/box.html.

HTML links to local network shares

3 Answers3

Linked