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A .url file is a Windows Internet Shortcut — a small text file in INI format that contains a URL. Double-click it and Windows opens the link in your default browser. It's how Windows has handled web bookmarks outside the browser since the Internet Explorer era, and they still work exactly the same way today.
The format is dead simple. Open a .url file in a text editor and you'll see something like `[InternetShortcut]` followed by `URL=https://example.com`. That's it. Some .url files include additional fields like `IconFile`, `IconIndex`, `HotKey`, and `Modified` timestamps, but the URL line is all that matters. The file is typically a few hundred bytes.
URL files are created automatically when you drag a link from a browser to your desktop or a folder. They're also scattered across enterprise environments where IT departments distribute bookmarks to company resources. The format is Windows-specific — macOS uses .webloc files for the same purpose, and Linux uses .desktop files with a URL type.