There are many different ways of creating a shortcut in Linux Mint. In this post I'll introduce several(tested on Linux Mint 19):

  • Creating shortcut from right click menu
  • Using terminal for creating shortcut
  • Creating a launcher as a shortcut

Video tutorial: how to create shortcut in Linux Mint 19
How to create shortcut to a weblink

Note: If you like to use shortcut in order to create shortcut you can :

  • Select the file or folder - on which you will create shortcut
  • Press and hold - CTRL + Shift
  • Drag and drop the file or folder
  • New shortcuts will be created.

Creating shortcut from right click menu

Let's say that we have folders: pictures and videos. Our goal is to create link from videos to pictures:

  • /home/user/Pictures
  • /home/user/Videos

Here are the steps that you can follow to create link from videos to pictures:

  • Open parent folder or Pictures or the other folders - /home/user/
  • Right click folder Pictures
  • Make Link (You may need to press + - next to open - in order to show more commands)
  • Copy paste the new link into videos folder

linux-mint-make-link

Using terminal for creating shortcut

Another way to create the shortcut would be by using the terminal. Below you can find two examples:

  • create new shortcut(symlink):
ln -s /path/to/file /path/to/symlink
ln -s /home/user/Pictures /home/user/Videos
  • create/update new shortcut(symlink):
ln -sf /path/to/file /path/to/symlink
ln -sf /home/user/Pictures /home/user/Videos

Creating a launcher as a shortcut

Another way of creating shortcuts in Linux mint is by using a launcher. These are the steps:

  • right click on the desktop
  • create a new launcher here ...
  • Enter launcher properties
    • name - Pictures link
    • command - nemo %UPictures
    • comment - link to pictures(optional)
    • icon - /usr/share/icons/Mint-x/places/128/folder.svg (optional)

move the launcher in the Videos folder.

Selection_018

If you need to create a shortcuts for external web links like Youtube, Facebook, StackOverflow etc then you can use a bit different technique like:

  • create a script
    • right click on your Desktop and name the file: **youtube.sh **
  • right click the script file and enable execution
  • Edit the file ( by click and choosing Display )
  • Enter the link as:
    • for chrome - google-chrome https://www.youtube.com
    • for default browser - sensible-browser https://www.youtube.com
    • for firefox - firefox https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/python?tab=Bounties

the final file content will look like:

#!/bin/sh
google-chrome https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/python?tab=Bounties

Now you can use the shortcut in order to open your link as Linux Mint / Ubuntu desktop shortcut.

In order to avoid the prompt:

"Do you want to run or display its contents"

You have two options:

  • Change this behavior for a single file by creating a shortcut in the panel
  • Change behavior for all files by:
    • Open Nautilus ( the file browser for Ubuntu and Linux Mint)
    • Edit
    • Preferences
    • Behavior
    • Executable Text Files
    • Run executable text files when they are opened

Personally I prefer the first option.