I would like to make a macro that would copy a selected URL from Net News Wire (my RSS reader), insert that into a pre coded URL and then open Safari with that modified URL.
I’ve tried reading up on my various options for help but am just not finding what I need. I’d appreciate any help.
This sounds fairly straightforward, but it would be much easier to help you if you gave us a real-world example. The part I'm struggling to understand is how you insert one URL into another URL and get a usable URL instead of something non-fucntional with two https strings in it.
So can you give us something like this: "I copy https://apple.com from NNW, and I want to insert the full URL into the existing URL https://mysite.com/mystuff/https://apple.com/today/news".
It's hard to provide advice on how to do the insertion step if we don't know what you're trying to do.
thanks;
-rob.
I would copy the URL from NNW, say “https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/opinion/trump-arrives-china-xi-beijing.html” and then insert in the “URL” in removepaywalls.com/<URL>
For some reason the full second URL was stripped. It is removepaywalls.com/<URL>
Ok, got stripped again. After the slash in the second URL is
That URL is what gets the first URL.
OK, the forum does not like the greater than and less than before and after “URL” after the last slash, it just stripped the whole thing out. So if my explanations are obscure, let’s just pretend to append the first URL, except in practice it will be in as a text replacement not appended. I presume there may be a different macro/option for insertion/replacement than append, if you could just point me to the variations.
Posting the second domain is enough to get me started. It looks like you want this:
https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/opinion/trump-arrives-china-xi-beijing.html
At least, that's what I get when I visit the site and put in the China URL you provided. (To post URLs without worrying about character stripping, just put a backquote at the start and end of the line, which is what I did above.)
So if that's the case, then the macro is pretty simple, though it probably should have more testing to make sure you copy a URL. I'm not going to post the actual macro, because you'll learn more by adding the actions yourself, but here's a screenshot:
Remove Paywall Macro (v11.0.4)
Step one makes sure the Copy menu is active (i.e. you have a selection), step two copies the selection, and step three opens the merged URL.
Hope that gets you started!
-rob.
The leading quotation mark before the NY Times URL needs to be removed.
Edit: Not that it's a problem in the macro.
Thanks - copied a bit too much from the source line :); edit applied.
-rob.
OK, I tried to recreate Rob’s workflow, but I can’t find Put URL on clipboard from selection.
I searched, I went through the list, nada.
I’m looking in Actions, going down the Categories list.
What you see in the image Rob posted is the If Then Else action set up to perform the Copy process, assuming the URL in NNW has been selected.
Now I’m even more confused. I understand you to be saying this is a If Then Else action, but I’m stuck on the Put URL on clipboard because it appears on top so I think that is the action I’m looking for. Given what you said I found If Then Else, tried to recreate Rob’s, still am stuck on the top being If All Conditions Met Execute Actions, I can’t find Put URL on clipboard from selection. Somewhere I’m missing the plot.
No need to look for it. Rob's example includes him having renamed that section of the macro, which is done using the Gear menu seen to the right of "Put URL on clipboard from selection."
Are you saying Put URL is not an action/macro, but just a title?
Correct.
Rob's macro is checking that text is selected in NewNewsWire, presumably a URL. If the Copy menu item is available for use, it's activated, copying the presumed-to-be URL. If nothing is selected that can be copied, the macro cancels. As shown, that's what the If Then Else action is confirgured to do.
Almost.
It is an If... Then... Else... Action:
...that has been renamed:
...to:
...which can make your macros more "readable" at the cost of making the original "base" Action more difficult to find.
But it's good to be aware of, since many KM Actions rename themselves depending on the options selected. Here's the Filter Action with different options:
I am so sorry for doing that; it's just automatic for me when I build a macro, because I find it much easier to navigate my names as opposed to the default action names. But I didn't intend to do it when posting this macro, as that can be very confusing, as you've found. But @Nige_S has (hopefully) cleared things up for you.
Again, my apologies for renaming the action in my demo!
-rob.
My own preference (for my own needs!) is to rename only Comment and Group actions. If I want to make of a note of the role of one or more actions, I put them in a Group and rename that (and of course a Comment can be added when longer explanations are needed). I mention this approach as just another option.
I do this as well, so my macros hardly ever contain the name of the original action; they're just a series of my notes as to what's happening in each group or action. I try not to do any of that when doing a demo for posting, but totally forgot in this case.
-rob.
