safari to open external links in new window

Question

I like safari to open links in new tabs in general. I.e. when I do a search, I want results I click to open in new tabs in the same window. This allows to have multiple windows with multiple tabs and have them grouped by topic.

when I click on a link i an email, safari (on OS X) somehow (randomly?) chooses an open window and opens the link as a new tab in it. sometime it picks even a minimised window, although there are others visible on the same space.

to be clear: I want the new window when the action is triggered from external application (e.g. Mail, etc.). Within Safari I'd like to stick with the default behaviour.

I tried the Safari Settings -> Tabs -> Open new pages in tabs instead of windows setting (all of them), but this does not give the expected result. it is general for all. Also google did not know a satisfying answer, so I am asking here.

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

I've experienced the same thing, new windows instead of tabs opening when control clicking, and it has seemed totally random to me, too.

The Safari Extension 'Link Thing' (maybe 'LinkThing' -?) will, by default, open all links in a new tab without your having to hit control unless the page (e.g. DuckDuckGo) disables and overrides the user's browser preferences.

Answer 2

The following OSA script opens the URL given as parameter in a new window.

function Safari {
    # Will open a New Safari window with argument 1.
    osascript <<EOD
    tell application "Safari" to make new document with properties {URL:"$1"}
    return
EOD
}

Put the code into the file .profile in your home directory and run it with . ~/.profile.

I’ve found this solution in another thread here on Stack Exchange.