I often come across items of interest while on my iPhone or iPad that requires my Mac for the next step (like installing new Mac software or utilities that I read about while browsing Twitter on my phone) and I feel that a few other methods are too much work: OmniFocus task to check out the URL, bookmarking it, or even tossing it into a Read Later service. I just want the URL open on my Mac and the first thing I see when I sit down to it next. This little set of utilities does that simply.

Video Example

How it's used

  • Copy a URL on iOS
  • Paste into Drafts, then send to the "Open URL on Mac" action
  • Your Mac's default browser open's the URL in a new tab

Requirements

How to install

  1. Install the Drafts action, by copying the Drafts Install URL below and pasting into Safari's URL bar while on iOS.
  2. Run this in the Terminal: mkdir -p ~/Dropbox/utilities/open-url/to-open-url(we're just making a new directory for Hazel to watch)
  3. Import the Hazel Rule, which can be downloaded here.

Drafts Install URL

drafts://x-callback-url/import_action?type=dropbox&name=Open%20URL%20on%20laptop&path=%2FActions%2FOpen-URL%2F&filenametype=0&filename=&ext=txt&writetype=0&template=%5B%5Bdraft%5D%5D

I tried just linking it, but GitHub strips out the href of the link, so I did this instead.

Bookmarklet for Safari

You can create a JavaScript bookmarklet that will automatically place the URL into Drafts and then run the action "Open on laptop"

To install as a bookmarklet use the following in a bookmark URL:

javascript:window.location='drafts://x-callback-url/create?text='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&action=Open%20URL%20on%20laptop'

Launch Center Pro

What's happening under the hood

  • Drafts creates a new text file containing just the URL and uploades it to the folder that Hazel is watching for any new file.
  • When Hazel sees any new file, it runs a terminal command that opens the URL (so you could launch apps besides browsers), and then deletes the file.

Hazel Terminal Command

    open `cat "$1"`

The $1 is Hazel's variable for the current actioning file.