How to get google chrome launcher on mac
By Robert King
A fan of the simple ‘start menu’ on show in Chrome OS? You can use it on Windows and Mac computers as well—and it offers more features than you might think. As well as launching your online apps, you can perform quick calculations and run web searches from this pop-up box as well.
The App Launcher is now an integrated part of Chrome, so you can activate it by installing any Chrome app inside the browser, from Gmail to Plex. Add a new app to Chrome and the launcher should appear automatically, though you can easily find it at any time if you need to.
On Windows, it’s under the Google Chrome heading on the All apps list. On a Mac, you can find it inside Launchpad. Either right-click and choose Pin to Taskbar (Microsoft machines) or drag the icon to the dock (Apple machines) to make the App Launcher a permanent part of your shortcut setup.
The Launcher shows all of your installed Chrome apps. On the Windows version of the browser, you can add websites to it by choosing More tools then Add to taskbar from the menu when viewing the site in question—tick the Open as a window box to have the site behave like a normal app.
As well as launching apps from the pop-up window, you can run web searches and run simple calculations. Unit conversions are also supported: Try typing “10km in miles” and the answer appears in the list underneath. Something else you can do, which you might not know about, is putting your apps in folders—drag one shortcut on top of another to create a new app folder.
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Another hint, if you are using multiple Chrome accounts, add –profile-directory=”Default” to the shortcut to use only the apps for your primary Chrome account. Replace Default with Profile 1, etc for the other accounts.
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What to Know
- To install: Download Chrome for Mac, launch googlechrome.dmg, and drag the Chrome icon to the Applications folder.
- To clean up the installer files: Go to Finder >Google Chrome >Downloads and drag googlechrome.dmg to the trash.
This article explains how to download and install Chrome for Mac as well as the benefits of using Chrome on a Mac.
How to Download and Install Chrome for Mac
Every Mac comes with Apple’s Safari web browser installed on it, and lots of people use it. Safari is far from the only browser you can use on a Mac, however. While the built-in option has benefits, you may want a different program, like Google Chrome. Here’s how to put Google’s browser on your Mac.
Go to the download page for Chrome on the Mac you want to install it on. The site detects that you’re using a Mac and automatically suggests the right version for you.
Click Download Chrome for Mac.
The installer program for Chrome downloads to your designated Downloads folder. Open the Downloads folder and double-click the file called googlechrome.dmg to launch the installer.
Drag the Chrome icon to the Application folder icon. The installer will copy Chrome to your computer.
Before you start using your new browser, clean up the installer files. If you don’t, those files will use up space on your hard drive unnecessarily. Open a Finder window and click the arrow next to Google Chrome in the sidebar.
Return to the Downloads folder and drag googlechrome.dmg to the trash.
Go to your Applications folder and double-click Google Chrome to start using your new web browser.
If you expect to use it often, drag it to the Dock for easy access.
The Benefits of Using Google Chrome on a Mac
Some of the most common and compelling reasons people prefer to use Chrome include:
- Chrome ties into the Google ecosystem: You can sign in to your Google account using Chrome and use all the services and data in your Google account, right there in your browser. If you’re a heavy user of Google services, Chrome is the simplest and best-integrated way to access them.
- Chrome is highly compatible: Although it doesn’t happen much these days, some sites won’t load or function correctly in Safari. In those situations, you might have better luck with Chrome.
- Chrome is available on many platforms: Because it comes from Apple, Safari is available only on Macs and iOS devices (it comes installed on the iPhone and iPad, too). Apple used to offer Safari for Windows but discontinued that version in 2012. Chrome, however, runs everywhere: Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Linux, and more.
- Chrome has a massive library of extensions: You can expand your browser’s functionality by installing extensions. Safari supports extensions, too, but Chrome has a much bigger selection. With over 10,000 extensions available for Chrome, you can add a huge array of features, including ad-blocking, web developer tools, and more.
Don’t worry about being permanently committed to Chrome. If you use it for a while and find that it’s not the right browser for you, you can always uninstall it from your Mac.
A fan of the simple ‘start menu’ on show in Chrome OS? You can use it on Windows and Mac computers as well—and it offers more features than you might think. As well as launching your online apps, you can perform quick calculations and run web searches from this pop-up box as well.
The App Launcher is now an integrated part of Chrome, so you can activate it by installing any Chrome app inside the browser, from Gmail to Plex. Add a new app to Chrome and the launcher should appear automatically, though you can easily find it at any time if you need to.
On Windows, it’s under the Google Chrome heading on the All apps list. On a Mac, you can find it inside Launchpad. Either right-click and choose Pin to Taskbar (Microsoft machines) or drag the icon to the dock (Apple machines) to make the App Launcher a permanent part of your shortcut setup.
The Launcher shows all of your installed Chrome apps. On the Windows version of the browser, you can add websites to it by choosing More tools then Add to taskbar from the menu when viewing the site in question—tick the Open as a window box to have the site behave like a normal app.
As well as launching apps from the pop-up window, you can run web searches and run simple calculations. Unit conversions are also supported: Try typing “10km in miles” and the answer appears in the list underneath. Something else you can do, which you might not know about, is putting your apps in folders—drag one shortcut on top of another to create a new app folder.
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Get our `newsletter`
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Another hint, if you are using multiple Chrome accounts, add –profile-directory=”Default” to the shortcut to use only the apps for your primary Chrome account. Replace Default with Profile 1, etc for the other accounts.
Though Google haven’t released Chrome App Launcher for Mac users officially but you can enable it from the back. Windows users can enjoy Chrome Apps officially as Google made it available to Windows two days back and said Chrome apps are coming soon for Linux and Mac Users.
Chrome Apps will not make huge difference for users of Windows and Mac as they already have bunch of apps and App Store, it is targeted for the Chromium OS Users. Chromium only have Google Apps integration and by introducing Chrome App Launcher, Chromium Users can access their favorite apps on their Chromebook very easily.
Chrome Store has a lot of apps which can now be used natively on Windows. They will run just as normal apps. Google has done very good job of running HTML5 apps on desktop with Chrome App Launcher.
Here are some of the great features you get with the app launcher.
- You can play games even when you are not connected to Internet
- You don’t need to open tabs and mess up with different apps on different tabs
- You can get all your reminder, updates and notifications of your on your desktop
- The apps will launch where you left previously
- The updates will automatically be updated
- And one main thing, you can quickly launch apps from your desktop
For Windows Users, after downloading the app launcher from the Chrome Store, you will get the App Launcher on the Windows Taskbar through which you can launch all your Chrome Apps with single click. For Mac Users, read below how to activate the app launcher on your Chrome.
Enable App Launcher Feature on Mac
First make sure that you have the latest version of Google Chrome, if not, you can update it from “About Google Chrome” option in the menu.
Now open a new tab and type “chrome://flags” in it and hit enter, it will open a page with all the experimental features which you can enable or disable.
Now press Cmd + F to open the search box and type in it “app launcher” and you will see “Enable App Launcher OS X app bundle“. What you have to do is Enable this feature. Once enabled, Quit Chrome App and launch it again.
Now, download your favorite Chrome Extension from the Chrome Web Store and you will see it in Chrome Apps folder in Applications. You can also drag the application from that folder to the dock if you want to quickly access it.
3 thoughts on How to Enable Chrome App Launcher on Mac
[…] are not much Chromebook devices but Google is pushing them gradually. Also, Google’s Chrome App Launcher is a nice step from Google that allows you to use Google chrome’s extensions natively on your […]
[…] is introducing new features to its Chrome OS day by day. Recently, Google announced Chrome App Launcher which allows you to launch any of your Chrome apps right from the Windows Taskbar for Windows users […]
[…] is regularly adding new features to its desktop browser. Recently, Google added App launcher for Mac and Windows, and today they introduced Google Now in Chrome Canary, which is the […]
Chrome Apps may have debuted as simple website shortcuts, but Google has quickly expanded on the initial capabilities so these things now feel and behave much like rich, native apps, as opposed to your typical clunky and somewhat slow web app. Today’s Chrome Apps are packaged as native code, can work offline, access your computer’s local storage and more.
There are some really fine Chrome Apps out there that will make you question your preconceived notions of what a web app can do and now Google has created a home for them, right in your Mac’s Dock.
Introducing Chrome App Launcher which puts Chrome Apps for your desktop right in your Dock. Just click its icon and up pops a grid of all Chrome Apps that you’ve installed on your system. Read on for full details…
Initially available in beta as part of a Chromium release back in May, Chrome App Launcher is now available to all Mac users. To use it, make sure you have the latest stable version of Chrome for Mac, visit the Chrome Web Store and download any Chrome App – you should see the Chrome App Launcher appear in your dock.
The Chrome App Launcher allows you to launch your favorite Chrome Apps right from the desktop. Chrome Apps are tied to your Google Account to save their state across platforms, providing a cohesive and synchronized experience. They also support advanced features made possible via certain APIs that are unavailable to regular web apps.
Chrome Apps work offline, update automatically and sync to any computer where you’re signed into Chrome, so you can pick up where you left off. Your Chrome Apps on Mac behave and feel just like native software.
For example, you can find your Chrome Apps in the Applications folder on the Dock. Search for apps by name in the Spotlight search—just like any other Mac program that you already use.
The full list of features supported by Chrome Apps is available here.
I recommend checking out some of the better Chrome Apps: fire up Chrome for Mac and visit the For Your Desktop section in the Chrome Web Store (it’s Google’s App Store for Chrome Apps).
Some of the better ones include read-later app Pocket, calendar app Any.DO, project management and collaboration program Smartsheet, full-fledged DJ software Until AM (depicted right below), Plex media player and lots more.
These desktop Chrome Apps all run offline and outside the browser.
You know what’s really, really interesting?
According to The Next Web, the search monster may be planning to take Chrome Apps everywhere, by giving developers the tools to take existing apps built for Chrome and wrap them to port to iOS and Android, making them available through the App Store and Play store. The steps to port web-based apps include modifying for mobile design, fixing bugs, working around limitations and testing.
This would allow Google’s developers to quickly target the world’s most popular desktop (Mac, Windows and Linux) and mobile (iOS and Android) platforms without having to re-write their Chrome Apps substantially (which are written in the primary languages of the web, meaning HTML5, CSS and JavaScript).
Chrome App Launcher settings.
If sources are to be trusted, Google is using Apache Cordova (the open source core of PhoneGap) to put a native frame over these core web apps so that they run natively on any platform.
This could be really huge.
Another Chrome App, MeVideoNext, lets you edit videos. I bet you never though video editing as a web app would be possible, no?
As long as these things are snappy and run reliably on the iPhone and Android devices, who’s going to notice the difference between the real native app and its ported counterpart? The average consumer couldn’t care less about platform differences or fragmentation.
By helping developers deploy Chrome Apps across platforms without too much fuss, Google for the most part is helping turn the vision of write-once-run-everywhere mantra into a reality. To consumers, this means even more apps that look and behave consistently across platforms.
Give Chrome App Launcher a whirl and let us know how you liked it down in the comments.
Google has today made some big changes to its Chrome browser for Mac with support for desktop apps and the addition of the Chrome App Launcher. Now, when you install a new Chrome app, the Chrome App Launcher will automatically add itself to your OS X dock so you don’t need to open the browser window to get at your web apps. Desktop apps for Chrome work like, well, regular desktop apps and they also function while offline.
Chrome Apps work offline, update automatically and sync to any computer where you’re signed into Chrome, so you can pick up where you left off. Your Chrome Apps on Mac behave and feel just like native software. For example, you can find your Chrome Apps in the Applications folder on the Dock. Search for apps by name in the Spotlight search—just like any other Mac program that you already use.
The Chrome Web Store now shows a new app category titled “For Your Desktop” and highlights those which will function outside of the main Chrome browser window. Launching one of these apps opens up an individual window, and everything functions just as a native Mac application would.
For those of us that spend all our web time in Chrome, these are a couple of extremely helpful additions. Are you one of them? What do you think to the features?
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Joe is the co-founder of Fitt.co. He’s a fitness professional and a serial entrepreneur. Read full profile
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Google is out to change the way you use the Internet.
Their new line of Chrome apps is designed to be used off-line on your desktop, not just on the web. Google’s Chrome book has long offered off-line capabilities, but soon these apps will now work on Windows machines, Macs, and Linux desktops.
If you’re not willing to wait, you can get the beta version of the app launcher on your Mac right now.
- You’ll need to download Google Chrome here or make sure that you have the most up-to-date version.
- When you’re prompted, run the program.
- With Chrome in place you’ll need to enable the app launcher. In Chrome’s search bar, enter chrome://flags. Next, locate and enable the “App Launcher OSX App Bundle.” Then, restart Chrome.
- Now you’re ready to check out the apps. Head over to the web store to download, manage and launch apps.
- After you launch an app, you’ll be able to locate it in the Applications folder of Chrome App Launcher.
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Technology has taken a vantage leap in providing solutions for man. Before now, technology used to appear complex and would require a great deal of expertise to handle solutions available. Today, we have technology applicable in the simplest human activities as smart products with intelligent algorithms powering them as they make error-free judgments and provide intelligent and analytic solutions.
Does technology have all the answers?
This article from Credit Suisse, tells us that technology does not have all the answers because it has been found to exhibit “similar biases,” as humans. No one can discredit the impact of technology, but it is not totally free of human input and this is the reason we experience these biases in many areas we have technology holding foot.
Creating technological solutions transparently
This article suggests that the process of creating technological solutions be made transparent and subject to contribution from many people who would end up as users of the product – male, female, young, old, learned, unlearned and all other preferences as we have them. It also underscores the importance of having women on product development teams. This approach is not sure to eliminate all forms of bias, but it is a good way to start in order to appraise the full benefits of technology.
Technology as the connecting tool
Technology so far has been a major connecting tool amongst us humans. It is used and appreciated by all regardless of race, language and sex. In order to keep it less subjective to these arguments about human biases. I believe we should gather opinions on products and solutions before making them available to the public. This could be done by gathering input from intended target users and receiving feedback across the stages of production.
“Recognizing the problem is a start…success will depend on inclusive technologies that meet this vast untapped market.” This cannot be more apt especially at a time when we look up to technology for solutions. We should not muzzle our progress with technology by battling algorithm bias. The first way to avoid this battle is by reading this article here.
Google has today made some big changes to its Chrome browser for Mac with support for desktop apps and the addition of the Chrome App Launcher. Now, when you install a new Chrome app, the Chrome App Launcher will automatically add itself to your OS X dock so you don’t need to open the browser window to get at your web apps. Desktop apps for Chrome work like, well, regular desktop apps and they also function while offline.
Chrome Apps work offline, update automatically and sync to any computer where you’re signed into Chrome, so you can pick up where you left off. Your Chrome Apps on Mac behave and feel just like native software. For example, you can find your Chrome Apps in the Applications folder on the Dock. Search for apps by name in the Spotlight search—just like any other Mac program that you already use.
The Chrome Web Store now shows a new app category titled “For Your Desktop” and highlights those which will function outside of the main Chrome browser window. Launching one of these apps opens up an individual window, and everything functions just as a native Mac application would.
For those of us that spend all our web time in Chrome, these are a couple of extremely helpful additions. Are you one of them? What do you think to the features?
Apple officially opens up the Find My app to third-party accessories
Apple has released a major update to the Find My app that now allows third-party products to use the company’s private tracking network.
More than a quarter of podcasts have just one episode, study finds
Apple’s podcast library might have two million entries but 26% have just a single episode.
Here’s the amazing official trailer for Apple TV+ show ‘The Mosquito Coast’
Apple TV+ might have another hit on its hands if this trailer is any indication.
Check out these weirdly adorable AirPods cases
You want something really weird, silly, or wonderfully different to protect your AirPods from life’s bumps and drops? We’ve got you covered.
Feb 21, 2013
Comment
Chromebooks have been gaining significant popularity lately. These Chrome OS-toting computers basically use Google Chrome itself as a computing and app platform, and require continuous internet connectivity to run all these web-apps. Chromebooks rely solely on the Chrome apps but since the browser itself is always running as a part of the OS itself, you do not need to launch it every time you want to run an app. Instead, you get an app launcher similar to the Start Menu for accessing all these apps. Today, Google has released a developer preview of its app launcher for Windows that allows you to launch your installed Chrome apps directly from Windows desktop. As of this writing, the app launcher is only available for Windows on the Chrome Dev Channel, but Google plans to push it to Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux soon.
In order to get the app launcher, you will need to switch to the Dev channel of Google Chrome. After switching to the Dev build, you will need to download any of the available Chrome packaged app such as TextDrive to enable the app launcher. Do note that none of the Chrome-packaged apps are currently searchable on the Chrome Web Store, and you’ll need a direct link to one of them (like that of TextDrive we just provided) in order to install them. Many of Google’s own Chrome apps might not work to initially get the Chrome App Launcher, so it’s best to go with TextDrive, even if you don’t need it. Also, if you have installed the Chrome-packaged app before switching to the Dev channel, you’ll need to uninstall and reinstall it in order to get the Chrome App Launcher. You will also be asked to sign in to a Google account before you can get the launcher.
As soon as the app is installed, you will notice a new icon in the Windows Taskbar. Click the icon to open the app launcher with the list of all your installed Chrome apps. Any offline apps will launch directly on the Windows Desktop, while the ones that require an internet connection will be launched in the default internet browser.
If you are a regular user of Chrome apps, this is quite a useful addition to the system and simplifies the process of launching your favorite apps. Hopefully, it will be soon make its way to the Beta and then the Stable channel for Windows as well as Mac OS X and Linux, allowing every Chrome user to take advantage from this useful feature.
Update: Chrome App Launcher is now available in Chrome’s Stable channel. We’ve added the download link below.
Google today announced Chrome apps are now available on OS X, in addition to Windows and Chrome OS. Mac users will also now get the Chrome App Launcher in their Dock when they download their first Chrome app.
Google first officially launched Chrome apps in September for Windows and Chrome OS. This may seem a bit contradictory, given that the Chrome App launcher arrived on Windows in July, but Google has been tweaking how Chrome apps work for months.
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The Chrome App Launcher was first spotted as part of a Chromium release back in May. Google clearly prioritized Windows over Mac, but now both the apps and the launcher are available on both platforms.
It works as one would expect: a grid icon resides in the Dock. A single click brings up a small tray of installed Chrome apps and services, any of which another click will open up.
You can also find your Chrome apps in the Applications folder on the Dock. Search for apps by name in the Spotlight search — Google emphasizes they’ll show up “just like any other Mac program that you already use.”
To check out the latest Chrome apps, just click on the “For your desktop” collection in the Chrome Web Store. For those who aren’t familiar with them, Chrome packaged apps are written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, but launch outside the browser, work offline by default, and access certain APIs not available to Web apps.
This year, Google launched Chrome apps for the desktop. Next year, the company is tackling mobile.
