#HOW TO MAKE CHROME APPS DOWNLOAD#
#HOW TO MAKE CHROME APPS WINDOWS#

Note that, unfortunately, these manually-loaded “apps” don’t sync across Chrome installations.

#HOW TO MAKE CHROME APPS WINDOWS#

I like to set a custom icon in Windows and pin them to my taskbar to make semi-permanent web apps. You can place your shortcut anywhere in Windows or macOS, and it will act like a normal shortcut file. Also, you won’t have access to the context menu when you right-click a link (although you do still get a context menu when you right-click a picture).

#HOW TO MAKE CHROME APPS DOWNLOAD#

Any links you click that aren’t part of the domain (like an external download link on a How-To Geek article) will automatically load up in a separate Chrome window (or in a new tab on an existing open Chrome window). Now when you double-click the shortcut, it will open the site you chose in its own window, with no address bar or other user interface elements. On macOS, it will download to the “Chrome apps” folder, which should open automatically. For our example, we’ll use the desktop, but it doesn’t matter which you choose. Right-click the new icon, then click “Create shortcuts.” In Windows, it will ask whether you want them on the Desktop, Start Menu, or both. The CRX file you installed will appear in the list. Now open yet another new tab, this time going to Chrome://apps. Click “Add App” in the confirmation window. Once both flags are enabled, click the Chrome menu button, then “More tools,” then “Create shortcut.” The “Open as window” option is there, just like in Windows.ĭrag and drop the CRX file from your desktop onto the Extensions tab. This is the path to the Google Chrome application that runs every time you click the shortcut. The Target box will contain something similar to the following: C:Program Files (x86)GoogleChromeApplicationchrome.exe. allow hosted apps to be opened in windows In the Shortcut tab, locate the Target text field.

It’s available in Chrome on macOS, too, but you need to enable the following options in chrome://flags: Update: As of Chrome version 72, the “open as window” functionality linked above has been restored to the Windows version of Chrome. I’ve spent years using the “Open as window” function to make impromptu web apps easy to open and manage.īut there’s a way to get them back, at least for the moment. We can’t tell you why Google decided that only its own ChromeOS devices would get this functionality from now on, though if you’re upset at its loss, you’re not alone. Or, rather, it did: in a late 2018 update, Google disabled this functionality on Windows and macOS.

Chrome has the useful ability to open a website as a window that doesn’t show the browser interface or open external links in a new tab.

How to make chrome apps