How to install any website as a desktop app in just a few seconds
You can easily make a website look and behave like a normal desktop app, so you can pin it to the taskbar or to the start menu, and make it run in a separate window, just like a normal program would.
I’m pretty sure most of you are always having a few specific browser tabs open, all the time. For me it’s Gmail, Google Calendar, Feedly, LinkedIn, and a few other popular services.
When you’re using 50+ tabs spread between multiple browser windows it can take time to access these important tabs, even if you know the navigation shortcuts, or search for an opened tab.
This is why I want to present to you a better solution: install a website as a desktop app.
What does it mean? You can decouple a tab from your Chromium browser and make it act like a normal app you have installed on your computer. You can pin the new “app” to the taskbar or the start menu. It will appear in the list of installed apps, and you can search for it in the Start menu.
If you didn’t know already it’s a website app you couldn’t see the difference.
But the difference is there, because this app uses your browser for rendering, but will appear completely decoupled from the browser master app. That’s the best explanation I could find without getting too technical.
Installing websites as apps works in Chromium based browsers, which means Chrome, Edge, Brave and pretty much any browser that uses the Chromium code base. And since it’s a browser feature it is operating system independent, which means it works on Windows, Mac OS, Linux.
Installing a website as a desktop app using Chrome
I’ll show you next how to install and uninstall websites as desktop apps using Chrome, the most popular browser. But don’t worry, it works the same in other compatible browsers.
First, select the tab you want to install as a desktop app.
Click on the three-dot menu at the top-right of the Chrome browser window.
Open the Save and share submenu.
Select Install page as app.
You will now see a final confirmation menu that asks for a name for the “new” app. It defaults to the tab title, but you can type anything you wish.
Note: The app will borrow the website favicon as app icon. In Chrome you cannot change that, but Edge lets you pick another app icon image at this step.
Immediately the tab will appear detached from the main browser window. It looks like this:
You can move, resize, close the window, pin to the Start menu, pin to the taskbar.
There is no indication you are using a website app, not a native app.
How to uninstall desktop apps
Let’s say you find out website apps are not your thing. Uninstalling them is just as easy: just click the three-dot menu of the app window and select Uninstall Gmail.
A small popup confirmation window will appear and will ask if you want to also delete the browser data for Gmail.
I wouldn’t do that, because doing so will erase all cookies and log you out of your account. That’s annoying if you want to visit and use the website again, which I assume you want.
Hope you like this trick and give it a try. I find it perfect for those websites I use all the time.
Previous articles you may have missed
It’s very easy to quickly and precisely select multiple files and folders if you are using Ctrl and Shift for making multiple selections. You need to do some practical exercise a few times to build up muscle memory, but it’s worth it.