How to pin a website to the taskbar or the Start Menu in Windows 10

Do you want to know how to pin a website that you visit often, so that you can access it faster? Maybe you start your day with facebook.com, with a news site that you enjoy reading, or by checking Gmail.com. No matter what browser you’re using, in Windows 10, you can pin any site to the taskbar or to the Start Menu. Here’s how to pin a website from all the major browsers for Windows:

Contents

1. How to pin a website to the taskbar or the Start Menu from Google Chrome
2. How to pin a website to the taskbar or the Start Menu from Microsoft Edge
3. How to pin a website to the taskbar or the Start Menu from Mozilla Firefox, Opera, or any other browser
4. Which website did you pin and which browser did you use?

NOTE: This tutorial illustrates how to pin websites to the taskbar or the Start Menu in Windows 10. To learn more about pinning to Start and find out what else you can pin in Windows 10, read How to pin to Start Menu in Windows 10: The complete guide.

How to pin a website to the taskbar or the Start Menu from Google Chrome

Google Chrome allows users to create a desktop shortcut to a website in just a few clicks. Then, that shortcut can be easily pinned to the taskbar or the Start Menu. To create a shortcut to a website you like, first visit the site in Google Chrome. Then, click or tap the “Customize and control Google Chrome” button that looks like three vertical dots or press the ALT + F keys on your keyboard. In the menu that opens, choose More tools and then Create shortcut.

Create a shortcut from Google Chrome

In the “Create shortcut?” dialogue, edit the shortcut’s name (if you want to), and then click or tap Create.

Edit the name of the shortcut, in Google Chrome

The shortcut is now added to the Windows 10 desktop, using the name that you chose and the logo of the website it points to. If you double-click (or double-tap) on it, it opens the website in Google Chrome. To pin it where you want, right-click or press-and-hold the shortcut, and choose between “Pin to Start” and “Pin to taskbar.”

Pin the website shortcut

How to pin a website to the taskbar or the Start Menu from Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge, which is based on the same rendering engine as Chrome, offers the friendliest options for pinning websites in Windows 10.

First, navigate to the site that you want to pin, then click or tap the three horizontal dots in the top-right corner of Microsoft Edge. They represent the “Settings and more” button. Alternatively, you can press the ALT + F keys.

In the menu that appears, choose More tools, then “Pin to taskbar” or “Pin to Start,” depending on what you want.

Choose where to pin a website in Microsoft Edge

If you choose “Pin to taskbar,” you see a prompt with the same name, where you can change the name of the site that you want to pin. To finalize the process, click or tap Pin, and you are done.

Pin to taskbar from Microsoft Edge

Now, the website has a shortcut on the taskbar with its logo. When you click or tap on it, the site opens in Microsoft Edge.

If you chose “Pin to Start,” in the dialogue with the same name, edit the website’s name, and click or tap Pin.

Pin to Start from Microsoft Edge

Windows 10 asks whether “[...] you want to pin this tile to Start”. Confirm your choice by pressing Yes, and the website is pinned to the Start Menu.

Confirm you want to pin this tile

You can then resize the tile as you want or group it as you like, following the instructions from this tutorial: Manage groups of tiles and shortcuts on the Start Menu from Windows 10.

How to pin a website to the taskbar or the Start Menu from Mozilla Firefox, Opera, or any other browser

Other browsers, like Firefox and Opera, do not have options for pinning websites to the taskbar or the Start Menu. However, you can get around this issue by creating a shortcut to that browser and adding the address (full URL) of the site you want to navigate to. To do this, first right-click on the space on the desktop, and choose “New -> Shortcut.”

Create a shortcut to your web browser

Then, use the Create Shortcut wizard to create a shortcut to the browser you want (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Edge, Internet Explorer), using the instructions from this guide: Create shortcuts for apps, files, folders, and web pages in Windows 10.

IMPORTANT: In the location field, do not forget to add the address (URL) of the website after the file path to the executable used by your favorite browser. Also, don’t forget to add a space between the file path, and the URL, like in the screenshot below. For Mozilla Firefox, we used “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” https://www.digitalcitizen.life/.

Add the URL of the site after your browser's executable file

Click or tap Next, and when you name the shortcut, it is a good idea to use the website’s name instead of your browser. Then, click or tap Finish, and the shortcut is found on your desktop.

Name your shortcut

One nuisance is that this shortcut uses the logo of the web browser that you are using. If you want to change it to use the website’s logo it points to, use the instructions from this guide: How to change the icon of any shortcut in Windows 10. When you are happy with the shortcut you created, right-click or press-and-hold on it, and then choose “Pin to Start” or “Pin to taskbar.”

Pin the website shortcut

The same procedure works for other browsers, too, like Opera. However, the path towards their executable file is going to be different because they get installed into a different folder, as you can see below.

Opera has a different path to its executable file

Which website did you pin and which browser did you use?

Before you go, tell us which site you pinned: is it Digital Citizen, Facebook, Google.com, or another? 🙂 Also, which browser you used to pin the website to the taskbar or the Start Menu? Comment below, and let’s share our favorite websites.