Open URL from Open finder dialog?

The point is, from the HCI angle it is a single action. When pasting a URL into the upload dialogue, the user almost never cares that the file is downloaded into temporary storage before being uploaded. If you have to do the download explicitly, and then upload the file you downloaded, that's several extra clicks plus the cognitive load of recalling the download/upload location and file name.

Have you considered using Spotlight (the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of your screen -- the right side of the menu bar?

You could plug the URL in there. If you like, you could click "Show All in Finder". That would provide something like this (I used this webpage's URL):

I don't really follow what you're trying to do, but since you point to the lack of "Open" in your screenshot, let me show you this:

If you control-click on what I showed you before, you are presented with an "Open" option (top of the dropdown list):

II think I understand what you want, but you cannot "open" something from the Internet without actually downloading it. Everything must be downloaded, even the text on a web page. All that is doing in Windows is hiding the download.

In general, you can drag a URL to the Dock Icon of any program that can open that file type if it can also handle a URL. Seems that only works if it is displayed, like an image.

Or, you can drag it to the Tab bar in Safari and Safari will download and display it or pass it off to the default application, if is safe, and you have that preference set in Safari's prefrerences (General tab).

You used to be able to option-click a link in Safari and it would download it. However, that seems to have been removed for images, like your jpg link. It just opened on top of the web page. It might work with other files types, though.

Yea, I'm in the same boat. It's really annoying that this apparently can't be done on a mac. I'm trying to add 24 photos to a craigslist add and it pops up the open dialog when you click add image. In windows, you can add a URL instead and it will be treated by windows as a local file so you don't need to download a ton of images first.

Barney-15E wrote:

II think I understand what you want, but you cannot "open" something from the Internet without actually downloading it. Everything must be downloaded, even the text on a web page.

What do you think your browser is doing when it displays content to you? It's downloaded on your computer for you to be able to see the images, text, sound, etc, hosted on the server. Windows lets you access the downloaded file in the temporary location. It appears that OSX does not, which is disappointing.

I have the same problem. So annoying that it seems not possible on a mac! It wastes so much time on a mac compared to windows! 😟 On Windows it's extremely simple and convenient in their windows explorer.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Feedback