Why You Should Turn Websites Into Apps on Your Mac

Now that most of our work is done on websites, it’s hard to find native apps designed for Mac. If you spend a lot of time on an obscure website or a dedicated work portal, you might want to create a dedicated app for it—something that works as well (or better) as Safari, shows notifications, and has a dedicated dock space . It also does not require any knowledge.

Apple has added a new feature to Safari in macOS Sonoma that lets you convert any website into a Dock app. And this focused approach can be beneficial for your productivity. The website icon (or badge icon) will appear as an app, and the site will run like an app when launched. You won’t see the Safari toolbar, start page, or any other browser features, so it’s a much more focused experience. You will not succumb to the charm of the big web. You can’t waste hours on Facebook if there is no Facebook tab open.

Web apps also offer a privacy incentive: Because these apps are separate from Safari, they don’t have browsing history, cookies, or website data. This is similar to using a different Safari profile for a specific view, since none of those views will show up on your personal profile. And since macOS treats it as an app, you can even open it when you boot your Mac .

How to turn any website into a Mac app

First, open the site in Safari. Click the Share icon on the top toolbar and select the Add to Dock option. A pop-up window will display the website’s name, URL, and logo, pre-populated by Safari. If you want, you can change the title, exact URL, or icon here. Then click “Add to Dock” and you’re done.

You’ll find the new app in the Dock, and when you launch it, it will work just like in Safari, with the same login. By default, the app doesn’t show a navigation bar, but you can enable it by clicking the app name in the menu bar and choosing Settings > Show Navigation Controls . Here you can also disable the color matching title bar if you wish.

During testing, I found that the strengths and weaknesses of the Safari browser are reflected in the applications. Google apps like Google Drive, Google Keep, and Workspace websites don’t work reliably in Safari, and the same is true here. To improve their performance, you’ll have to look into Chromium-based tools like Coherence X4 , or third-party apps like Unite and Flotato . While you’ll get better performance there, the downside is that they’re all paid apps, costing up to $30, and aren’t as easy as simply adding a website to the Dock using Safari.