PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
How do I stop saved websites creating folders?
Q When I save a website to my Windows desktop using Edge, the browser always saves an additional unwanted folder on the desktop. If I delete this folder, the saved site also disappears. What’s happening here? I’d also prefer it if the icon for the saved site was that of the website in question, but it’s always a blue and green globe. How do I get around these issues?
Paul Rayner
A What you describe is just the way this feature works in Edge and pretty much every other web browser. When you choose the ‘Save page as’ option, your browser downloads all the files that make up that web page and saves them into a folder (on the desktop, in your case, although you could save it to any other location on your PC). When you delete this folder, you’re simply deleting the saved web pages.
The icon you mention is just a file in HTML format. When you click it, Windows launches your default web browser before opening the files that make up the actual website stored. Your default browser is Edge, so Windows uses the Edge icon for the HTML file, because it’s Edge that opens HTML files on your PC.
That explains what’s going on, but we have to admit that we’re not really sure why you want to save websites in this way. Perhaps you’re using this feature so you can return to particular web pages when you don’t have an internet connection. If that’s not the reason (and while we generally avoid questioning our readers’ preferred methods), there’s very little advantage to saving websites in this way.
If all you want to do is create a link for a website on your Windows desktop, there’s a much neater and easier method. Simply click the ‘site information’ icon, just to the left of the website address, then drag and drop it on to the desktop.
Bear in mind that the link
