10 hidden URLs to help you rule the web
You’re probably used to bookmarking your favourite sites for easy access, but the web goes much deeper than the top domains you’re familiar with—from your social networks to your email box, having the right URL to hand can enable you to jump right into the page, feature, setting, or search you need. Here are 10 of the most useful ones.
Enter the above URL in your browser’s address bar to jump straight to the messages marked as important in your inbox (by the way if you change the “0" for another number, you can switch between all the Gmail accounts you’ve configured). Other Gmail shortcuts you might want to try saving are ones to take you straight to your drafts or starred emails.
Screenshot: Gizmodo
Just how many episodes of Stranger Things have you trawled through lately? This URL will tell you, and maybe tell you why your recommendations have gone so haywire as well. If you don’t want something you’ve watched influencing what gets recommended to you in the future, click on the cross icon to the right. Click Rating to see the titles you’ve rated.
There’s been quite a kerfuffle lately over third-party apps connected to your Facebook account, and it’s a good idea to regularly review the apps hooked up to your social network profile. Keep the above URL saved or close at hand and the job is much easier—it takes you straight to the page for disconnecting apps, with no menu browsing necessary.
Screenshot: Gizmodo
Deleted a file inside your Dropbox that you’ve since decided you did actually need after all? The web link above should see you right, listing files erased inside the last 30 days. If you want to bring a file back from digital death, click on it, then click Restore. Other useful Dropbox URLs you might want to save for easy access are shared files and file requests.
Speaking of user data, Google keeps an awful lot of it on file, which you may not be happy about depending on how much you trust Google. Click the above link to hear all the voice searches you’ve run through your Android phone, or your Google Home speaker, or whatever—you can even get them played back to you via the Play buttons on the right.
Screenshot: Gizmodo
You might not visit it much, but Spotify has a website where you can log in and check your account information. One of the other features on the site is the opportunity to recover any playlists you’ve recently deleted: Just click Restore next to the relevant playlist and keep the tunes flowing. You can also see your registered offline devices and notification settings.
Escape the maelstrom of your main Twitter timeline by building up a shorter list of people you actually like, and then replacing your main Twitter bookmark with this new, shorter one. This trick can be used to jump straight to other people’s lists too, provided they’re public. Also, you can link straight to your Twitter notifications, moments, or liked tweets.
Screenshot: Gizmodo
Instagram’s on the web as well now, if you hadn’t realised, Stories and all. One of the ways you can use this to your advantage is by quickly linking to any Instagram tag you like using the URL above, whether that’s your local city or your favourite breed of dog. Other URLs worth bookmarking for Instagram include your saved posts and activity on your account.
The Watch Later playlist built into your YouTube account can be accessed from the URL above (to add something to this list, click the plus button then Watch Later under any video). In fact, you can link directly to any YouTube playlist, though the URLs are usually pretty garbled. Other bookmarks of use are your YouTube history and your subscriptions.
Screenshot: Gizmodo
We’ve featured several Google web apps in this list, but in our defence it does this online app stuff better than anyone else at the moment. The URL above takes you straight to your Google Maps Timeline, a record of all your movements logged in Google Maps (if you’re allowing the app access to such information). See also your Google Maps contributions.
