App shortcuts are quick and easy to create. But they are still heavily reliant on Chrome and closely integrated with Google’s browser. In this article, you’ll learn exactly how to use this feature in Chrome on macOS.
What Is an App Shortcut?
An app shortcut is a bit like a bookmark in your browser, but with added powers. Web apps such as Gmail or Twitter suit the format best, rather than traditional, document-focused sites. If you use the Pinned Tab feature, or otherwise have certain sites permanently open, it’s a good alternative.
Note that app shortcuts are not the same as the extensions that you install from the Chrome Web Store. Web apps are a replacement for that feature anyway.
Read More: Chrome Extensions to Vastly Improve Your Browsing Experience
How to Add a Shortcut to a Website as an App
You can add a shortcut to a website using the following steps:
Open Chrome. Navigate to the website that you want to add as an app. Open Chrome’s main menu via the three vertical dots in the top right. Open the More Tools submenu, and click the Create Shortcut item. Make sure to tick Open as window to create a standalone app shortcut. Enter a name for the shortcut and click Create.
When you add a shortcut, the original tab will close, and the shortcut will open in a new window. If the shortcut already exists, it will open without creating a duplicate.
What Influences the Look and Feel of an App Shortcut?
When you create a shortcut, its title will default to the title of the webpage. But if the page includes certain metadata, the shortcut will use an alternative title.
This allows page authors to supply a preferred value for the app context. Often, this value will be shorter. Each site can configure other details, including the app’s icon and even some design aspects, such as color.
How Does an App Shortcut Appear When Compared to a Normal Tab?
App shortcuts intend to mimic local applications running in a separate window from your main web browser. The most significant default difference is the removal of the address bar.
Since an app shortcut represents a single destination, tabs are no longer relevant. As a result, the tab bar disappears, although the app’s title remains.
Some navigation icons are also unnecessary, since you are viewing one site in isolation. There are no forward or home icons by default. Sites can even configure their apps’ display to hide all navigation icons.
The global app menu is also reduced; it does not include the normal Bookmarks, People, Tab, or Help items.
How Does an App Shortcut Behave?
Links in the app that would normally open in a separate tab (or window) will open in the main browser application, not the app shortcut window. Links that would normally open in the same tab will load in the app’s window.
Links to other domains, along with app shortcuts for non-secure sites, will display an extra bar at the top of the app’s window. This bar shows the domain alongside an icon that displays site information. In the case of a followed link, closing this bar has the same effect as clicking the back button.
Although apps open in their own dedicated window, they still need an instance of the main Chrome application to be running. If you close Chrome and then open an app shortcut, Chrome will reopen alongside the app in its separate window. Closing the main Chrome window will not close apps, but closing the Chrome application itself will.
The Chrome main menu (the three vertical dots) is very different in an app shortcut. The main omissions are those items that are window or tab-related. Global Chrome features such as Downloads or History will also not appear in the app shortcut.
How Does macOS Treat App Shortcuts?
In many ways, App Shortcuts appear as if they are full-blown, separate applications. If you use the App Switcher to move between applications using Cmd + Tab, you’ll see app shortcuts appearing just like any other.
If you add an app shortcut to the Applications folder, you can use Launchpad to open it like any other application.
You can drag an App Shortcut icon to the Dock and launch it just like a normal application.
If you open Activity Monitor whilst an app shortcut is running, you’ll see it displayed alongside other applications. It can be inspected or forced to quit like any other.
How Are Shortcuts Stored as Files?
On macOS, Chrome stores app shortcuts in a new folder:
This is only a default. You can move app shortcuts to any location you prefer and organize them how you want.
Shortcuts themselves are folders named with the app’s title, followed by the APP extension. In macOS terminology, each folder is a bundle. This is a long-standing mechanism for collecting related files and grouping them together as if they were a single file.
These bundles are quite lightweight; an instance of the Gmail shortcut app consists of five files occupying a total of 804K. The biggest file by far, at 749K, is the executable, app_mode_loader, that actually launches Chrome.
This makes each app considerably larger than if it were a simple bookmark. But unless you’re working with thousands, you’re unlikely to see any significant storage impact.
Are App Shortcuts Like Electron Apps?
In appearance and behavior, app shortcuts are like Electron apps. Electron is a technology for building cross-platform desktop apps with web standards: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Common examples include Slack, Figma, and the Atom text editor.
App shortcuts are generally quicker and easier to download. They will always be as up-to-date as their corresponding website. But app shortcuts depend on Google Chrome, and need a running instance of the browser to operate.
Improve Your Web App Experience With Chrome App Shortcuts
Chrome web app shortcuts are a halfway-house between standard document-focused websites, and more traditional local software applications. They offer an alternative means of running web apps, such as Gmail or Todoist, outside of your standard web browser.
Running in a dedicated window can make a web app easier to manage in your desktop environment. It also looks a little cleaner, which can be useful when taking screenshots or including web apps in presentations.
