How to turn a website into an app: desktop, phone, and app store routes

There are two very different things people mean when they ask how to turn a website into an app. The first is an app for yourself: a website that opens in its own window, with its own icon in the Dock or on the home screen, instead of living in a browser tab. That takes about a minute and costs nothing, because Safari, Chrome and the mobile browsers already do it. The second is an app for other people: something your customers can download from the App Store or Google Play. That route goes through an app builder service, a developer account, and a store review that can reject an app for being "a repackaged website." This guide covers both, with the exact menu names and the prices and rules as they appeared on the official pages on October 18, 2026.

This site is published by the developer of a tool that turns websites into Mac apps. Other options are described by their own published facts.

Decide which kind of app you need first

The answer changes everything downstream, so it is worth one honest minute.

If the goal is to stop losing a website among thirty tabs, to give a daily tool its own window, or to have a web service show up in Cmd+Tab like a normal program, then you want a personal app. Nobody else needs to install it. No account, no review, no fee.

If the goal is to put your business in front of customers on their phones, with your logo in the store and push notifications, then you want a published app. That is a product with a budget and a maintenance schedule.

A quick way to tell them apart:

Question	Personal app	Published app
Who installs it	You, on your own devices	Customers, from a store
What it costs	Nothing	Builder subscription plus store fees
How long it takes	About a minute	Days to weeks, including review
Who approves it	Nobody	Apple and Google reviewers
What happens when the site changes	The app shows the new site	The app usually shows the new site too

Most people searching this phrase are in the first column. The rest of this guide starts there and moves to the second.

On a Mac with Safari: File, then Add to Dock

Since macOS Sonoma 14, Safari can save any webpage as a standalone web app. Apple documents the steps on its support page, Use Safari web apps on Mac:

1. Open the page in Safari.
2. From the menu bar, choose File, then Add to Dock. The Share button in the toolbar has the same Add to Dock item.
3. Type a name for the app and click Add.

The result is a real app that sits in the Applications folder inside your home folder, opens from the Dock or Spotlight, and appears in Notifications settings under its own name. Apple lists several details that matter in daily use:

• Separate data. The web app shares no browsing history, cookies, website data or settings with Safari. A login in the app does not leak into Safari, and the reverse is also true.
• Your own icon. Open the app, click its name in the menu bar, choose Settings, then click the icon to pick a new image.
• Extensions per app. The Extensions tab lets you turn Safari extensions on or off for that one app.
• Badges. Sites that send notifications can show an unread count on the Dock icon, as long as you accept the notification request inside the web app rather than in Safari.

To delete one, open your home folder, open its Applications folder, and drag the web app to the Trash.

The limits are just as clear. It needs macOS Sonoma 14 or later, it uses Safari's engine, and Chrome extensions do not run in it. If a site works best in Chrome, or if you rely on a Chrome extension such as a password manager that is set up there, the Chrome route below fits better.

On a Mac or PC with Chrome: Install page as app

Chrome has offered app windows for years, but the menu changed in Chrome 128, which is why older tutorials no longer match the screen. Google's developer blog explains that Create shortcut now makes a bookmark on the desktop that opens in a normal tab, and that the old "open as window" behavior moved to a separate item, Install Page as App.

The current steps, from the Chrome Help page on web apps:

1. Open the site in Chrome.
2. At the top right, select More (the three dots), then Cast, save, and share.
3. Select Install page as app, and follow the prompt. You can change the name here.

Some sites show an install button at the right edge of the address bar instead, which does the same thing using the icon and name the site provides.

A few behaviors worth knowing before you install a dozen of these:

• On a Mac, the installed apps are stored in a Chrome Apps folder inside the Applications folder of your home folder, not in the main Applications folder. That is the first place to look when one seems to have vanished.
• Type chrome://apps in the address bar to see them all. Right click one and choose Launch at startup to have it start when you sign in to your computer.
• To uninstall, open the app, select More, then Uninstall followed by the app's name, then Remove. You can also choose to clear the site's data from Chrome at the same time.
• Each app belongs to the Chrome profile you were using when you installed it. It shares that profile's logins, which is convenient, but it also means you cannot run the same service under two different accounts in two app windows from one profile.
• To keep the icon in the Dock after quitting, right click it, choose Options, then Keep in Dock.

On iPhone and Android: Add to Home Screen

The phone versions take a few taps and need no developer account.

On an iPhone or iPad, open the site in Safari, tap the Share button, then tap Add to Home Screen. The site gets an icon among your other apps. Sites that are built as progressive web apps open without the Safari toolbar.

On Android, Chrome offers two items. Google's blog describes them: tap More, then Add to home screen, then Install app for an app-style window, or Create shortcut for a home screen bookmark that opens a tab.

For a personal shortcut, this is the end of the job. For a business, it is also a useful test. If your website already works well when added to the home screen, a lot of what an app builder sells is already covered by the site itself, and the remaining question is whether you need a presence in the stores.

Publishing to the App Store and Google Play: what builders charge

App builder services take your website URL, wrap it in a native shell, add features such as push notifications and a branded splash screen, and either hand you the files or submit them for you. Two of the services that rank for this search publish their prices openly. These are the figures shown on their pricing pages on October 18, 2026:

• webtoapp.design (pricing): plans are priced by monthly active users. Viewed from Japan, the page showed Small at ¥6,800 per month (up to 250 monthly active users), Medium at ¥12,000 (up to 2,500), and Large at ¥17,500 (up to 25,000), each billed yearly, with Enterprise from ¥69,500. All plans include an Android app and an iOS app and a 14 day free trial. The page also offers euro billing.
• Appilix (pricing): a 15 day free trial for a first Android app, then Standard at $119.00 and Premium at $229.00 per Android app, or combo packs covering one Android and one iOS app at $229.00 and $439.00.

On top of the builder, the stores charge their own fees. The Apple Developer Program lists a $99 annual membership. The webtoapp.design pricing page also lists $25 once for Google Play. Builders generally cannot publish your app under their own accounts, so plan on opening both developer accounts in your company's name.

The real cost is ongoing. A yearly plan, an annual Apple fee, and the time to answer store review questions continue for as long as the app is listed.

The App Store rule that rejects plain wrappers

Before paying for a builder, read section 4.2 of Apple's App Review Guidelines. It is short and it is the main reason wrapped websites get rejected:

Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website. If your app is not particularly useful, unique, or "app-like," it doesn't belong on the App Store.

Section 4.2.6 adds that apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected unless they are submitted directly by the provider of the app's content. In practice that means two things. The app must be submitted from your own developer account, not the builder's. And it should do something the website alone does not: push notifications that matter, offline access, a device feature, or a clearly app-shaped experience.

The same logic applies to customers on any store. If the app is only the website with a different frame, people who already use the website have little reason to install it.

Where the free browser routes run out on a Mac

For personal use, Safari and Chrome cover a lot. The gaps show up when the number of web apps grows past a handful:

• Two accounts at once. Chrome ties each app to one profile, so a work and a personal Gmail in two side by side app windows means juggling profiles.
• Icons. Chrome uses the site's own icon, which is often a small favicon that looks blurry in the Dock. Safari allows a custom icon, but then Chrome extensions are not available.
• Browser updates. Chrome updates every few weeks, and app shortcuts tied to the browser can lose their icon or stop launching after an update.
• Managing many. Ten or twenty web apps spread across two browsers and several profiles become hard to find and edit.

A site to app tool for macOS fills these gaps by creating a separate app for each site, each with its own isolated browser profile, using a browser already installed on the Mac. One such tool, published by the developer of this site, offers 300+ presets for common services, seven Chromium based engines, custom icons, and repair after browser updates. It is free for up to 3 apps, and $24.99 as a one-time purchase for unlimited apps. The full list is on the features page, and the step by step setup is in the guide. To check whether the services you open every day already have a preset, see the supported services.

What to change first

Pick the one website you open most often and make it an app with the browser you already use: File, then Add to Dock in Safari, or Install page as app in Chrome. Use it for a week before deciding whether you need more accounts, custom icons, or a store-published app. If two accounts side by side or a long list of web apps becomes the problem, Kagemusha is one way to handle it on a Mac.