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Is there a permalink I can use for answers/comments?

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Yes, there's a "share" permalink for each answer to a question (and for each question as well).

It's right next to the "flag" and "edit" links at the bottom of the answer:

Screenshot of the "share" permalink location

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    How could I have missed that. :) Commented May 22, 2009 at 16:02
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    I just noticed that too, that the "share" to social networking sites AND the "link" text are all rolled up into the "share" text. It used to look like this meta.stackexchange.com/a/101026/160875 Not sure how I missed that either! Commented Oct 6, 2012 at 10:45
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    "link" would be clearer. I wonder how many views this page has had since the change. Commented Jul 3, 2013 at 0:36
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    agreed. I came here because I thought "share" would take me to some social networking site. "link" would be much more accurate. Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 16:23
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    The problem is with longer answers. Looking for a link we would expect to find it high, at the top of the answer. But the "share" control is at the bottom of the answer. For a one-liner like in the example, it is intuitive. But for a 100-liner, it is not. Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 22:44
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    @DouglasHeld +1 Man, that’s dismal for discoverability. Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 16:49
  • Like this? meta.stackexchange.com/a/45598/250904 : ) Commented May 17, 2016 at 9:24
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    The URL created by the share button also includes your UserId. You can safely remove this if you don't want your Id to be shared. Commented Feb 16, 2017 at 19:48
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    "share edit flag"; top or bottom; link or share: The implemented solution seems "good enough"; it hasn't been changed; the community seems to be getting used to it, even if it is an oddity. On the other hand, this remains difficult to find, until learning about the oddity. FWIW. Commented Jun 18, 2018 at 15:09
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    Stackoverflow, are you listening? THIS IS BAD UI EXPERIENCE Commented Nov 20, 2018 at 17:07
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    how should we refer to a person who answered a question? It seems it is not still possible in stackoverflow? @username does not work! Commented Mar 27, 2020 at 12:39
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    Unless I am missing something obvious, as of today there is no "share" button anymore. Is that some kind of a flaw or an intentional design change? Commented May 14, 2022 at 15:11
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    @PeterBašista Do you have an adblocker active? I noticed the same as you, but when I disabled ublock origin and refreshed the page the 'share' link reappeared. Commented May 15, 2022 at 10:12
  • @aSemy Thank you for the insight, you are right. It was blocked by uBlock Origin in my case as well. I am wondering why. Is it possible that it has some embedded trackers or something similar which would cause uBlock Origin to block it? Commented May 16, 2022 at 11:53
  • The blocking of the "Share" button is caused by the "cosmetic filtering" feature of uBlock Origin. It seems like it does not consider this button as malicious. Probably a mere fact that it is called "Share" causes this filtering mechanism to hide it. Commented May 16, 2022 at 12:11
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Permalink for questions/answers can be copied from the box shown after clicking the "share" link as shown below

Screenshot of share box

Permalink for the comments can be obtained by right-clicking on the posting Date/Time of the comment and copying the link address. Screenshot indicating timestamp for comment

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    +1 for also explain the comment link :) Commented May 21, 2015 at 11:42
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    You can copy the address (i.e., ‘‘Copy shortcut’’ or ‘‘Copy Link Location’’) of the “share” link, too. (That’s slightly less manual motion than click-copy-close.) Commented Jul 19, 2017 at 19:10
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    It'd be no surprise if something has changed since 2014. In Jun 2018, this link takes me to a "revisions" page. While interesting and valuable, that page isn't the intended target of this discussion. FWIW. Commented Jun 18, 2018 at 15:14
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    @GWarner that is not how alt texts work. Describe what is to be seen in the image, not what the image is. Commented Jul 19, 2021 at 13:22
  • @Luuklag You do have a point, I will edit it. I chose 'screenshot' because nullifiying an ALT description gets as much rejection. The text describes the procedure so the describing it in the picture is redundant) Commented Jul 19, 2021 at 13:37
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Recursive answer!

HTML anchor tags allow you to provide links to an element on the same page. You can use the same feature here as well.

To create this link:

  1. Copy and store the URL of the question in a notepad
    (example: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/45597/how-can-i-link-to-a-specific-answer)
  2. Then click on the "share" button on the specific answer you would like to link to and copy the URL
    (example: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/45600/381523)
  3. Append the first numeric value from step2 to the URL in step1 like below
    https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/45597/how-can-i-link-to-a-specific-answer/45600#45600
    Note: You need to add the number twice (with a # in between) so that the page doesn't reload if you click multiple times.

Benefits

  • it will provide a readable url containing the question-text
  • if you are a web-developer, you might already be aware of this use-case
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    This is perfect, you should mention the benefit of this method: it will provide a readable url containing the question-text, while the other method provides only a very much shortend version. If anyone didn't get how to extract this url, the 45600 at the end is extracted from the "share"-url -> meta.stackexchange.com/a/45600/328307 Commented May 15, 2016 at 15:10
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    thanks, exactly what i was looking for, with the readable url. i don't think the answer number within the path does anything, just the hash Commented Jan 30, 2017 at 20:13
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    Or you simply enter https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/45600 in the address bar of your browser, let SE and your browser handle the proper redirects and then copy the resulting url from the address bar. No wonky notepad / copy/pasting things twice with a # in between needed. Commented May 17, 2021 at 8:32
  • worked for me and hence very helpful answer Commented Jan 25, 2022 at 21:16
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I will just add a few comments on various formats of the link to an answer:

  • As explained in other answer, you can get a link by clicking on share. Notice that if you do this while logged in the link contains your user id at the end - in my case I get: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/45598/183484. The link works as well without user id and if you do not want it there you can simply remove it and you still get a working link: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/45598 https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/45598 (This is useful if you do not want the link to reveal your identity. If you do not care much about badges, there is not actually much difference between using the two links.)
  • By clicking on some link to answer you get link in address bar which has the following format: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/45597/how-can-i-link-to-a-specific-answer/45598#45598 How can I link to a specific answer? The advantage of this is that it contains also question id and it is at least partially human readable. (In fact, you can replace the part how-can-i-link-to-a-specific-answer by pretty much anything, as long as you keep it a valid url.)
  • Quite often when I include a link in a post on Stack Exchange or in chat, I use [text](url) format. For example: [How can I link to a specific answer?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/45597#45598) How can I link to a specific answer? or [jp2code's answer](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/45597/how-can-i-link-to-a-specific-answer/45598#45598) jp2code's answer, etc.1 I will add that I obtained the first link using the bookmarklet "Formatted link to a webpage" from this page (Internet Archive). Personally, I find it quite useful - by one click it creates a formatted link, where the title of the post is included. (Or if some part of the page is selected, it is included is text.)

In case of link rot, I will copy here also the source of the above bookmarklet:

t=window.getSelection().toString(); if (!t && document.querySelector('h1')) { t=document.querySelector('h1').textContent.replace(/ \[closed\]| \[on hold\]| \[duplicate\]/g,'').trim(); } else if (!t) { t=document.title.split('-')[0].trim(); } u=window.location.href; if (typeof StackExchange!=='undefined' && u.indexOf('area51')==-1 && /^[qa]/.test(u.split('/')[3])) { u=window.location.protocol+'//'+window.location.hostname+'/q/'+window.location.pathname.split('/')[2]+window.location.hash; } window.prompt('Copy to Clipboard','['+t+']('+u+')');

1Stack Exchange quite often expands bare link to the question title. But this is not always reliable. And in this way you have a better control over the text.

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  • About "Notice that if you do this while logged in the link contains your user id at the end": It'd be no surprise if something has changed since Jan (it'd be good!). In Jun, I don't see my user id. On the other hand, the link goes to a Revisions page, which isn't the intended destination of this discussion. Commented Jun 18, 2018 at 15:19
  • @BaldEagle That is strange. When I click on share, I do see my userid at the end of the url. For example, for this answer I get: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/305392/183484. Commented Jun 18, 2018 at 15:39
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Use the share button if you want to link to a specific answer.

If you'd like to link to a comment, copy the URL of the timestamp.

linking to Stack Overflow

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    Existing answers already cover both post share links and comment timestamp links. Commented May 4, 2018 at 1:13
  • Understood, for demonstration purposes mainly Commented Jun 21, 2018 at 16:45
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This answer is different from the other answer (pay attention to the end of the URLs).

I just appended the fragment identifier at the end of the question URL (without / or without duplicating it) and the page now does not even need to reload (in most cases).

  1. Copy the question URL (you can right click on the question title and select Copy link)
    Example: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1471994/what-is-setup-py
  2. On your desired answer, click the share button and copy the first number after /a/.
    Example: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1472014/8583692 ➜ 1472014
  3. Append a # followed by the number from step 2 to the link from step 1.
    Example: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1471994/what-is-setup-py#1472014

Complete example:
[my link title](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1471994/what-is-setup-py#1472014)

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  • This is literally the same as the other answer, just with a different example. What made you post this @Mahozad? Commented Sep 21, 2021 at 8:37
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    @Luuklag It is different form that answer! Pay attention to the end of the URLs. Commented Sep 21, 2021 at 8:43
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The fastest way

  1. Right click the answer's "Share" button
  2. Either copy that URL or open it in new tab

Copying will result in a shorter link:

Opening in a new tab will expand into a full-length link with an anchor:

The shortest URL

  1. Right click the answer's "Share" button
  2. Copy that URL
  3. Remove the user ID "slug" from the end of the copied link

For example, this link copied from the share button:

Becomes this link:

This is the shortest answer URL possible (without a shortener).

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