Copy link to highlight meaning and How to disable this Chrome context menu item

When you select text in Chrome browser and right-click on it, you will Copy link to highlight item. What does it mean? In this post, we will explain what it does and how to disable it if you have no use for it.

What does Copy link to highlight do in Chrome?

Copy Link to highlight context menu item in Google Chrome browser allows you to link directly to a specific passage that you may have selected or highlighted so that you can share the special URL with others.

To see how it works:

1. Launch Chrome and open any webpage
2. Select or highlight a block of text
3. Right-click and select Link to highlight.
4. You can share this link with others.
5. Now when the other person clicks on this link, he will directly land on this block of text.

To see the link that is generated, after selecting Link to Highlight, paste it in Notepad and you will see something like this.

https://news.thewindowsclub.com/windows-11-simulator-106110/#:~:text=Windows%2011%20Simulator%20Online

Clicking on this link will directly land you on the selected text that will be highlighted.

It is a useful feature if you often share links with others and you want them to focus on a particular paragraph.

If you have no use for it, you can disable it if you wish.

Related: Create links to specific highlighted text on a webpage using Link to Text Fragment Chrome extension.

How to disable Copy link to highlight in Chrome

To disable Copy link to highlight in Chrome:

1. Launch Chrome
2. Go to chrome://flags/
3. Search for Copy Link To Text
4. From the drop-down, select Disabled
5. Restart Chrome.

Copy link to highlight will be disabled.

Read: Deep-linking in Google Chrome could be a privacy nightmare; raises security concerns!

UPDATE: Looks like Google Chrome has removed this flag. Vasily tells us:

To disable this feature, users now need to launch Chrome (or Edge, Opera, Chromium) with this command-line switch:

--disable-features=CopyLinkToText

By creating a desktop shortcut by right-clicking the Chrome icon > Properties, and replacing Target with this string:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --disable-features=CopyLinkToText

Hope you find this small tip useful.

More Chrome Tips and Tricks and Chrome Development Tools Tips and Tricks here.