When you get into self-hosting, you'll start to realize that remembering different ports and IP addresses for your services and home lab can get frustrating. For many, the solution is to set up a self-hosted dashboard to easily sort and manage shortcuts to these services. But this requires additional configuration and troubleshooting. Plus, if you're self-hosting on a device with limited resources, you may what to limit how many additional services you add.
If you want the convenience of shortcuts to your self-hosted services, without going to the trouble of setting up and configuring additional self-hosted dashboards, there are some simple and effective ways to save shortcuts — especially for self-hosting beginners.
Browser bookmarks
The simplest solution
The simplest way to save shortcuts to your self-hosted services is to save them as bookmarks in your browser. If you have syncing set up, this also makes it easy to access your services across devices. However, whether you can access them from outside your home network will depend on how you've configured your services.
The benefits of saving your services as bookmarks are that it's simple to do, doesn't require additional tools, and you can easily organize them into different folders or give them prominence on your bookmarks bar. Saving a service as a bookmark also makes it easier to find the service when you type it into your search bar and saves you from having to remember IP addresses or ports.
The main drawback is that if you're very visual or already have many bookmarks, shortcuts to your self-hosted services can easily get lost among other links. While I relied on bookmarks to some extent in the earlier days of self-hosting, I don't save them for every service due to this issue.
Custom search shortcuts
My personal favorite
This works best if you're using a Chromium browser like Chrome or Brave. While plenty of browsers allow you to save custom search engines, Chromium browsers allow you to also save custom text shortcuts that let you easily access specific pages and websites.
For example, to access my Home Assistant dashboard, I created a shortcut that allows me to simply type "@ha" into my search bar to take me to the page. I also set up shortcuts for my Donetick and Jotty instances. The benefit of these shortcuts is that you can tailor them to your own preferences. This means you can use the shorthand that makes the most sense to you. You can also make them incredibly short, which saves you from typing much to access the service.
To set up shortcuts, you can go to Settings -> Search engine -> Manage search engines and site search. On this page, you will click on the Add button next to Site search. There you can set a name for the shortcut, the text shortcut, and the link it directs to.
The main drawback is that these shortcuts aren't available on the mobile versions of Chrome and Brave. But I have another trick designed specifically for mobile shortcuts when there isn't a dedicated companion app for a self-hosted service.
Raindrop.io and other bookmark managers
Great for cloud syncing and cross-platform support
If your built-in browser bookmarks are a bit too cluttered, a bookmark manager like Raindrop.io comes in handy for saving shortcuts to your self-hosted services. There are other bookmark managers out there, but I personally enjoy Raindrop's functionality and organization features.
You can use it for bookmarks in general, with a specific tab dedicated to your home lab, or make it dedicated entirely to your home lab. It all depends on what works best for you.
There are a few things I like about Raindrop, but the fact that it is available as a browser extension, web app, and mobile app makes it really easy to use and sync across devices. I found this useful when switching between different browsers on different devices because it allowed me to access a central service that stored shortcuts regardless of platform or browser. It meant that I had constant access to these shortcuts even when switching from Chrome to Brave to Firefox across different devices.
With its mobile app, you can also easily save links you visit while on your phone's browser and access your shortcuts even if you don't have syncing between your desktop and phone's browser. If you prefer visual shortcuts, Raindrop is also a good solution for that as it allows you to set image previews.
You could also use a custom start page service, but I found it more useful to set up Raindrop and then set it as my start page in my browser.
Saving web pages as shortcuts on your phone
Useful for services that don't have apps
If you want to use a self-hosted service on your phone, it's often useful to install its companion app. This is what I do for Home Assistant and Paperless-ngx. But many services don't have dedicated mobile apps. In this case, if the service's web app is mobile responsive, it's useful to save it as a shortcut on your smartphone. Depending on the service, you may even be able to save it as a progressive web app.
This makes it convenient to access the service through a shortcut on your phone's home screen, rather than having to sift through bookmarks or search through different URLs.
To save a page as a shortcut on your phone, open it in your mobile browser, select the drop-down menu, and select Add to home screen. For services that can be installed as a progressive web app, you will often see the option to install it pop up on the page. I've done this for Jotty Page, since I use it on both my desktop and phone to make quick notes and checklists. I also used Donetick as a shortcut on my phone before I set it up on a URL with an HTTPS connection, as the mobile app only supports a secure connection.
Simple shortcuts to your self-hosted services can be set up easily
When it comes to self-hosting, you'll already be spending a fair bit of time troubleshooting, configuring, and updating services. So if you're not really interested in self-hosting a dashboard for your services and just want a simple way to access them with shortcuts, these tricks and services can help you do that with minimal setup.