# Open external links

If you do not want your app to open website links within the app, you can use the `shell` module to open them externally. When clicked, the links will open outside of your app and in the user's default web browser.

When the demo button is clicked, the electron website will open in your browser.

##### Renderer Process

                    const { shell } = require('electron')
                    const exLinksBtn = document.getElementById('open-ex-links')
                    exLinksBtn.addEventListener('click', (event) => {
                    shell.openExternal('http://electron.atom.io')
                    })

## ProTip

Open all outbound links externally.

You may want to open all `http` and `https` links outside of your app. To do this, query the document and loop through each link and add a listener. This app uses the code below which is located in `assets/ex-links.js`.

##### Renderer Process

                    const { shell } = require('electron')
                    const links = document.querySelectorAll('a[href]')
                    Array.prototype.forEach.call(links, (link) => {
                        const url = link.getAttribute('href')
                        if (url.indexOf('http') === 0) {
                        link.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
                            e.preventDefault()
                            shell.openExternal(url)
                        })
                    }})