The technology industry is irritable that we don’t install apps as often as we did during the first few years of smartphones, when we were entranced by our new toys and installed apps constantly.

This change seems to be preparation for new technology that hasn’t arrived yet. It looks like you’ve opened a Windows program. Right-click on the taskbar icon and click on Pin to taskbar.ĭone! You’ve created a shortcut to a website that opens in its own window, without any Chrome tabs or controls. On the Apps screen, right-click on the shortcut to the website and click on Open as window.įinally, click on the app to open it. If you don’t see the Apps button, right-click on the bookmarks bar and click on Show apps shortcut.If you don’t see the Bookmarks bar, click on the settings menu in the upper right, then click on Bookmarks / Show bookmarks bar.That’s not the end!Ĭlick on the Apps button on the left of the bookmarks bar, shown in the above screenshot. You’ll create a shortcut on your desktop that opens the website in a tab in Chrome. Then click on More tools / Create shortcut. Use Chrome to browse to a website that you use regularly and that would be useful in its own window so it looks like a program on your computer.Ĭlick on the settings menu in the upper right – the three vertical dots. How to add a Chrome shortcut to your taskbar that opens a website in its own window

It took some digging to discover that there is still a workaround until Google changes the rules again. It looks just like any other program you’d run on your computer.Ī few months ago Google removed an important checkbox from that process – the box that said “Open as window.” It was the secret sauce that made it work. I wrote an article three years ago about how to set up a shortcut that opens up a website in Chrome in a special window, separate from the other browser windows and tabs, without the normal Chrome toolbar and buttons at the top. Any website might be in that category for you for me it’s Office 365 webmail, Twitter, Dropbox, my LastPass Vault, and some of the dashboards for line-of-business apps. When you set up a website to open in its own window, it shows up separately on the taskbar so you can switch to it easily, and you won’t close it by accident when you’re closing 12 other tabs in your main Chrome window. There are some websites that fit your workflow best when they are running in their own separate window. It’s still possible but it takes a bit of extra effort. Google has changed the steps required to pin a website to your Windows 10 taskbar.

Cannot pin to taskbar windows 10