Open sites (like Google Keep) without the distractions

Have you ever had that experience where you opened up your browser to do something important only to end up wasting your time on YouTube or something?

What if there was a way to launch urls (e.g. web.whatsapp.com) from the start menu in a window that is clutter free (i.e. no address bar and tabs)?

You don’t want to install an ‘app’ just for this purpose, would you?

Chrome lets you launch whatever site you want and have it look like an app:

Just click the 3 dot menu, go to More tools and Create shortcut. Previously, there was no ‘Open as Window’ option, but now there is (this allows it to open up without the address bar, which you can unhide after launching the shortcut).

Make sure Open as window is checked, otherwise it just launches the browser with the address bar.

You can do this with other applications as well such as Google Keep.

Also, the window size and location are saved, so the next time you open the ‘app’, it will appear in the same place as when you closed it.

If you want to switch to Chrome, it will open in Chrome as a new tab WITHOUT refreshing the site.

And yes, it will appear in the start menu.

Details

On Windows, the shortcuts appear in:

%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Chrome Apps