SharePoint 2010 – Where’d “My Links” Go?
In MOSS 2007, we’re used to seeing a link in a drop-down box at the top right of our SharePoint sites, called My Links. At first glance, it seems that this functionality has been removed from SharePoint 2010. It’s still there, sort of. Here are a couple of places that you can find it:
Libraries
In a library, go to the Library tab in the ribbon. Click the Connect to Office button. This is the interface to add or remove a link to the library to the list of “My Links”, as well as to manage this list of links.
When you click Add to SharePoint Sites, this library is not only added to your own personal list of links, but it is added to all of your Office suite of applications, on the “Open” and “Save As” screens.
When you click Manage SharePoint Sites, the following screen is displayed, with a list of your whole list of links:
![CropperCapture[107]](https://i0.wp.com/wonderlaura.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/66-croppercapture107_3ad8d678.png?resize=625%2C175 "CropperCapture[107]")
My Site
So, there’s your “My Links”, but doesn’t it exist on your My Site? Yes, it does. Go to your My Site and click on My Content at the top. Click Site Actions, Edit Page, and click to Add a Web Part. In the Recommended Items category of web parts, click to add the My Links web part to the page. There it is! Right click on the My Links web part title, and copy that URL to the clipboard.
What if you want the My Links link to be more obvious and accessible, though? Yes, there’s a way to do that also, although it still won’t be the same as it is in SharePoint 2007. It entails adding My Links to the Personalization Site Links in the User Profile Service Application.
- In Central Administration, click Manage Service Applications.
- Click the User Profile Service Application.
- Click Configure Personalization Site.
- Click New Link.
![CropperCapture[108]](https://i0.wp.com/wonderlaura.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/66-croppercapture108_3ad8d678.png?resize=432%2C167 "CropperCapture[108]")
- Your URL will look something like that. In this scenario, I have a web app just for the my sites. Fill in an owner because that field is required. Leaving the Audience field blank means that this link will be shown to everyone.
Now, when users are on their My Site, My Profile, My Content, they will see this:
![CropperCapture[109]](https://i0.wp.com/wonderlaura.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/66-croppercapture109_3ad8d678.png?resize=418%2C46 "CropperCapture[109]"){kind=small}
Very good Laura. I had many people ask about this. I will share your article with them. Keep up the great work.
Thanks! We’ve been searching for this information.
Does the “My Links” shortcut appear on every Sharepoint site you visit or just “My Site”? I remember “My Links” from MOSS 2007 which appeard on every page and were very useful to jumping to your favorite pages
Thanks for posting. I was wondering about this. I’m surprised that they made this more difficult. I liked how this feature worked before (one-click access to My Links from any SP page). But I’m sure our devs will be able to get it added back to the interface or get it added as a web part on our portal homepage.
laura, hope you can help me out.. on the right drop down menu .. “My profile” link is missing.. how to get it back How to add for example “My Test” in the top ribbon next to “My Link” ? also the top bar in the site settings is missing ? how do it get it back ? Neel Neel
We created our own link to My Links on the corporate portal that displays the My Links control in a modal dialog. That allows users to quickly see their links. You could also display the control in a flyout panel. Here’s the control you need to use: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.portal.webcontrols.quicklinksmacroview(office.12).aspx I know it says Office 12, but it’s available for 14 also.
Hi, Thanks for your post I was banging my head for quite some time now to where to find ‘my links’. I was able to display ‘my links’ in our portal homepage by exporting the webpart from mySite. However, do you know how to include the ‘add’ or ‘edit’ functionality in the webpart? I wanted the users to add links in the homepage of our portal, because currently it is redirecting to mySite just to add a link. many thanks!!
KC, Each library has a Connect To Office button in the library tab of the ribbon. This is where you can add/manage links, but this button is not available to clients who don’t have office 2010.
@ Neel. I had the same problem as you, did not see the My site and My Profile under drop down. I found to appear the link hard ways. You probably have diffirent web apps for My Site Host, and your team sites. You probably uncheked the Team Site’s Web app to consume User Profile servies from your User Profile Service in Central Admin. 1) Go to central admin 2) Highlight the Team Sites’s web app 3) In the ribbon, under Web Applications, click Service Connection 4) and make sure your USer profiles that is used is checked Note: This will not make this team site My Site Host. All it does to make sure that this web app is aware of from where to get the User profile info. Your User Profile will redirect the call to the correct My Site Host. Hope this help .. Cheers..
When I edit my MySite content page, I only see the Tag Cloud web part in the Recommended Items.
Lisa, Not sure why you wouldn’t see the web part. Might want to look at what features are activated on the My Site, and see if there’s anything obvious that’s not activated. I’ve never seen this web part just not show up.
Very nice one Laura.. I especially liked the third option of adding personalized link through user profile admin section.. Nice neat way to do it.. Great job..
I was wondering on the main page how do you add links like this?
Excellent, Laura. I wanted to find the real scoop, your post came up #1 in Google, and you told me exactly what I wanted to know! Any ideas on migrating user’s existing My Links from 2007 to 2010 on an upgrade? Or does it just happen automagically? M.
Great info, thanks! We just did an upgrade and migration from 2007 to 2010 so I’m also wondering where my extensive list of My Links went. I asked my sysadmin and he said he’s not sure and too busy to look right now solving all the other migration problems.
Marc, Not sure. Michael, What kind of upgrade was done? In place or DB attach?
I’ve added My Links on My Site. Then I exported it to a team site. I want SharePoint 2007 like feature of My Links. But the problem is, the web part does not show ‘add link’ link. Its just showing links which I update on my My Site web part. Any suggetion on this?
Well done, Laura. Ya done good, . . . girl!
We have been taking advantage of SP automatically adding a site to My Links when a user is granted access, so it’s an automated list of all the sites a user can access. Is this functionality still available in the 2010 work-arounds you mention?
I have been looking for this everywhere Thanks,
erogers, Hi, no the “My Links” drop-down that’s built into the nav in 2007 does not exist out-of-box in 2010.
Has anybody found a third party tool, or some codeplex, or custom dev that works similar to the 2007 “My Links” drop down. It appears that these were used a lot more in my organization than I thought prior to upgrade. I was able to follow the instructions above and that at least is keeping the users from rioting, but it is so different from what they had before, they would be happy with something better. Just thought I would ask if anyone found anything before I pose it to our custom dev group to figure out if it is worth making. Thanks,
Hi Laura, We’re creating a 2010 my links solution to replicate the equivalent 2007 functionality (inc my links drop down control). We were initially looking at using the myquicklinks.aspx functionality however I’m concerned that the only reason its available in 2010 is to support 2007 upgrades and there is little supporting documentation on this. We’ve decided against this solution approach based on not knowing the stance on future support (I’m guessing its hidden for a reason). I’m not sure whether you have any thoughts on this but thought i’d post this up. Thanks Paul @paulgrimley
Hi Laura, Thanks for the post. I have attended a SharePoint training and connected one of the libraries to office. Now I don’t have connection to SharePoint site and connect to SharePoint pop-up really annoys me. Is there any way we can manage these shortcuts from our client, without need for SharePoint site? Thanks
Ilter, This may be what you’re looking to accomplish. Please see my video on “saving straight to sharepoint” and saving favorite locations: http://www.endusersharepoint.com/2010/07/12/beginners-tip-save-directly-to-sharepoint-screencast/ Paul, I don’t have any inside scoop on this, but my take is that it was simply overlooked by MS in sp2010. Not sure why/if it would be phased out.
Hi, Does anyone know if you must have My Sites installed for this feature to work? We don’t, and when we click on unything under the “Connect to Office” dropdown nothing happens… Any ideas? Nathan
Nathan, Without My Sites, there is no My Links, and therefore the connect to office button doesn’t work.
Hello Laura, I have to create a custom webpart that just shows the link which are added in “My Links”. Is there any class or method that can help me get just the links. Thanks, Maulik Dhorajia
Hi Laura, quick question. Can you limit the number of MyLinks?
Maulik, I’m not a dev, so I don’t know what a class or method is. I know there’s a web service called userprofileservice.asmx, that has some operations related to my links, though. David, I don’t know, I doubt it.
Yes, it seems to be a “dumb move”, but perhaps part of a strategy to get people to move into MySites vs. using portions of it, such as MyLinks. It really was a feature underutilized and seldom know by many users, but something that allowed personalized navigation that aided the user experience once known and taught. Does anyone know if there is a MyLinks webpart that can be dropped on something like a root site?
Matt, Yes, you can do that using a web service. I blogged about it here: http://www.sharepoint911.com/blogs/laura/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=33
Our school district had us migrate to the new SharePoint and everyone is crying about the loss of My Links. Teachers used it extensively. Laura I will give your method a try and if it works there will be hundreds of teachers a lot happier!
We have MyLinks successfully installed on our intranet and me and co-workers add links to them. The question I have is we have it so our links are Show to “Everyone” but even if I go to my co-workers profile page I can’t see their links they added. Is that feature gone now? Thanks
charris, Good question. I can’t find a place where you’d see other people’s My Links.
Hi, In SharePoint 2007, under ‘My Links’ I had saved links pointing to internal Sharepoint sites and File shares. After upgrading to SharePoint 2010, the links that pointed to File Shares are broken but the SharePoint sites are working. Tried looking for online documentation but could not find any. Is this normal behaviour in SharePoint 2010 ? Any information would be helpful. Thanks
Great and much-needed post. I was right with you until… “Your URL will look something like that. In this scenario, I have a web app just for the my sites.” Is this something you have created bespoke or will the suffix “/_Layouts/MyQuickLinks.aspx” also work for me? Can you fill me in a little on the “web app”?
Manish, I don’t know, I’ve never seen anyone put links to file shares in My Links. Paul, When you click the “manage sharepoint sites” button (shown in one of the screenshots), that will take you to the url, so then you’ll know what your farm’s URL will need to be.
Lisa and Laura, I was able to find the My Links webpart under Content Roll Up.
I am usind SharePoint 2010. The connect to office button does create SharePoint links, but they disappear. After adding and removing a few times – they may or may not show up again. Why the inconsistent nature of this?
Does anybody know how to find the list that contains the links or how to export to Excel?
it is a very great article and helping me alot.
Tony, Sorry I’ve never seen that happen. SPzone, That’s probably buried in a database somewhere, and would take custom development to get to it, or tap into a web service.
Superb laura
Thanks all, and of course now in SharePoint 2013 / Office 365, it’s the “Sites” link in the nav.
Hi Laura,
Is Quicklinks in SharePoint 2016? do you know?
_layouts/15/MyQuickLinks.aspx
It’s all evolved into the “Sites” and then into the “SharePoint” button in the waffle since then.