Internet Shortcut

File Format
Name	Internet Shortcut
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Web Internet Shortcut
Extension(s)	.url
MIME Type(s)	application/internet-shortcut, application/x-url, text/url, text/x-url, wwwserver/redirection

Internet Shortcut files are used by Windows to save web addresses as files or desktop icons which can be clicked on to launch your default web browser to access the sites. Internet Explorer favorites are stored in this format. They are text files mostly consisting of name-value pairs, one to a line, with an equal sign separating the field name from the value. There are also some square-bracketed lines giving other attributes. Dates and times are stored in a cryptic hexadecimal format. There does not appear to be an officially registered MIME type for these files, but a number of unofficial types have been used.

References

• URL file format