How to Make Any Website Look like a Desktop Application Using Chrome
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Sometimes, we just don’t feel like using a browser to do all of our work. Whether or not it’s just too distracting or tempting to switch to another website, or we’re just really a fan of the way applications used to work, everyone has their own reason to why they’d want to use a desktop application.
While you can’t directly make a website run as a desktop application without some coding knowledge, you can make it seem like a desktop application using Google Chrome’s “Open as Window” feature. To use this feature, first go to the website you want to open independently. My favorite to use is Pandora Radio, as it’s a great example of what a web-based application could look like in its own window.
Great! Once you’re there, open the dropdown menu in the top right. Then, hover over “More Tools”, and select “Create shortcut…”
Now you have a shortcut to the application on your desktop! This will create a chrome “app” which we’ll need soon. If you open the shortcut now, it will only open in the browser like a normal link to a website. Here’s where the magic comes in.
Type in chrome://apps. Once you’re there, you’ll see a page like below.
You’ll see that your newly created shortcut is shown on this page. To make an app open as a window, right click on your shortcut and hit “Open as window.” Now when you use the shortcut, or if you use the app in the apps page, it will now open in a window like the one shown below.
Congratulations! You’ve successfully made a website work like a desktop application… sorta. While it makes it look like one, it still has all of the limitations and features of a web browser. This means that if you want to reload the page, you can press F5 or CTRL+R. You can also use the three dots in the upper right corner to get some more options about the website.
Thanks for reading, I hope this helped out!
