URL Field

URL Field Capabilities


The URL field supports various special protocols and placeholders.

URL Field Capabibilities: Usage Tips & Tricks:

Text  Standard Capabilities

The URL field can execute any valid URL, for which you have defined a protocol handler. On most systems at least the http://, ftp:// and mailto: protocols are defined. KeePass supports all registered protocols that Internet Explorer supports.

For example, if you globally (i.e. using the Windows Explorer) register PuTTY for ssh:// URLs, KeePass will automatically use PuTTY for ssh:// URLs, too.


Terminal  Executing Command Lines

Instead of an URL, you can also execute command lines using the URL field. To tell KeePass that the line you entered is a command line, prefix it using cmd://. For example if you would like to execute Notepad, your URL could look like this:

cmd://C:\Windows\Notepad.exe C:\Test\MyTestFile.txt

The virtual cmd:// protocol also supports parameters for executed applications, in contrast to the file:// protocol. This was the main reason why cmd:// was introduced; with file:// you aren't able to pass any parameters to started applications. Use the cmd:// protocol instead.

The paths for the cmd:// protocol don't need to be encoded. For example, you do not have to replace space characters by %20, as it is normally required for other URLs. KeePass just cuts away the cmd:// virtual protocol prefix and passes the remaining command-line to Windows.


Text  Placeholders

In the URL field, you can use several placeholders that will get automatically replaced when the URL is executed. For example:

http://www.yoursite.com/default.php?user={USERNAME}&pass={PASSWORD}

For this entry, KeePass will replace {USERNAME} by the data of the username field and {PASSWORD} by the data in the password field when you execute the link.

Exactly the same placeholders are supported as the auto-type feature supports. For a complete list of supported placeholders, see the Auto-Type Placeholders List.

Also note that the special placeholders are supported, too. For example, the {APPDIR} placeholder is replaced by the application directory path of the currently running KeePass instance. It's the absolute path of the directory containing the KeePass executable, without a trailing backslash. If you would like to start a new KeePass instance, you could set the URL to:

cmd://{APPDIR}\KeePass.exe


Terminal  Starting RDP/TS Sessions

You can use the URL field of entries and the virtual cmd:// protocol to start remote desktop connections.

For this, enter the following in the URL field of an entry:

cmd://mstsc.exe

When you now double-click onto the URL field of the entry in the main window, a Windows remote desktop connection is initiated.

MSTSC is the Windows terminal server connection program (remote desktop connection). You can pass a path to an existing RDP file to the program to open it. For example, the following URL opens the specified RDP file:

cmd://mstsc.exe C:\My Files\Connection.rdp

MSTSC also supports several command-line options: