Conclusion: The built-in browser incorrectly normalizes or redirects . It should preserve the file: scheme for local file preview.
Steps to Reproduce
Environment: Cursor built-in Simple Browser
Steps to reproduce:
Open Command Palette → “Simple Browser: Show”.
Enter a local file URL, e.g.:
file:///path/to/your/project/example.html
Confirm / press Enter.
Expected: Page loads via file:// and displays the local HTML.
Actual: The URL is rewritten to start with h t t p s://file///, e.g.:
h t t p s://file///path/to/your/project/example.html
(i.e. the scheme is changed from file: to h t t p s:), so the local file does not load.
Conclusion: The built-in browser incorrectly normalizes or redirects file:// URLs to h t t p s://. It should preserve the file: scheme for local file preview.
Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known issue. There was a fix earlier, but it looks like it regressed or doesn’t cover your specific case (Linux + Simple Browser).
As a workaround, try using the Cursor Browser tab instead of “Simple Browser: Show”. Open the Command Palette and search for “Open Browser”. Or you can just start a local dev server (python -m http.server, npx serve, etc.) and serve the file from localhost.
I’ve forwarded this to the team. Let me know if the workaround works for you.
i was tyring to open an html file specifically and dragging into browser or using the open browser button as instructed didnt help. i didnt want to start a webserver, ill do without for now. but would be nice to be able to open files in the browser.