10/4/23
9:00 am

How To Create and Use Safari Web Apps On Your Mac

In macOS Sonoma you can create Web Apps where you can view your favorite or most used sites in their own app instead of a full browser. This not only makes going to these sites more convenient and app-like, but also enhances privacy.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to use the new Web pps feature in Safari on your Mac, including lots of tips that are hard to find on your own.
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So a new feature in macOS Sonoma is the ability to create WebApps from webpages in Safari. WebApps are like browsers that only browse one website. So instead of going to Safari and using a bookmark to go a site that you use everyday you can simply launch an app that is the name of that site and it will take you directly to that site. All the app does is allow you to browse on that website. 
You create these by starting off in Safari. Let's start with a very simple example of a website you don't even log into. Here's Wikipedia. Let's say I want to create a Wikipedia WebApp. Now the first thing I want to do is I want to go to a webpage where it makes sense for me to start. This page here probably isn't ideal because I already know what language I want to use. So let's use the front page here for English and Wikipedia. So from this page here I'm going to go to the File Menu and then look for Add To Dock. So this is the menu item for creating WebApps. If I select it, it's going to come up with this screen here which gives me a chance to change the name of the site. In this case I definitely want to do that. This is way too long. So I'm going to get rid of everything after the word Wikipedia. I can also alter the URL for it, but this is exactly where I want the WebApp to start so I'm good. Then it is pick an icon based either on the name of the website or if the website has provided an icon for this kind of thing. I'll show you how to customize this later on. For now I'm going to put Add and that's it. I've created the WebApp. 
So where is it? Well, let's quit Safari first. Then, of course, look in the Dock because it says, after all, Add to Dock. Now let's try it by clicking on it. You can see it launches an app and the app has the name that we chose for it. So just Wikipedia. We can see very minimal menu items here. It looks like we're browsing the webpage. But notice carefully at the top you don't see all of the tabs, address bar, or other items. You just see a Back and Forward button and the name of the page. Now you can browse the site as normal. So I can go to another webpage inside and continue to click around. I can fill out forms and I can use the webpages just as I normally would in Safari. It is just that instead of Safari I appear to be in this special app. 
This is separate from Safari. So if I go back down here to the Dock and want Safari you can see I have Safari running here and I've got this WebApp. If I use the App Switcher you can see both of them there. There's the WebApp I created and there is Safari. They are completely separate apps right now. 
A look through the menus up here we'll see in the File Menu we only have the ability to open a new window which will just start on that first page. Close this window. Open the current webpage in Safari or use Sharing Options as we would normally do in Safari. Under Edit we just have basics here. Copy Link. In View we've got the ability to completely Hide the Toolbar. There is not much in the Toolbar. We can go into Reader View. That's available as well. We can also zoom in now or go to Full Screen. The Go Menu just has Back and Forward or go to the Home page for this WebApp. The Window Menu allows us to see if there are multiple windows here and switch between them. In the App Menu we have Quit and we also have Settings which we will look at in a minute. 
Now let's try it with the website where you log-in. So an example would be a social media website. It could be a Search Engine site like Goggle. It could be a banking site. It could be shopping. Anything that you regularly log into. So, I'm going to start here as an example and use the Discussion Site, Apple.com site. I'm going to sign-in here in Safari. You can see here I'm logged in. Here's my little icon. If I click on that it shows you my profile. Let's create a WebApp for this. First, let's go to a page on this site where I really want to start. This Welcome Page is really nice but it will be nicer if I started on the Browse Page. This will show me the different sections that I follow and the latest things that have been posted there. So, let's have it start here. I want to go to File and then Add To Dock. See here how this site does provide an icon to use and I can alter the name. So let's call this Apple Discussions and this will be the starting location. I'll click Add. 
Now let's Quit Safari and let's launch this app through the Dock. Here it is. So notice how it takes me right to that page to start with and I'm logged in. One of the neat things it does is if you create the WebApp while logged into the site it will take the cookies and the website data from Safari and start the WebApp with that information. So you'll already be logged in providing the site uses standard log-in techniques. So in this case I'm already logged in here. 
Now it is important to note that the cookies and website data are separate for each WebApp and separate from Safari. So if I go to Safari here, and let's say here I'm logged out. So you can see I've got the sign-in button. I'm definitely logged out. Then I look at the Apple Discussions App that I created. You can see that I'm logged in. They are completely separate. As a matter of fact using a WebApp is a lot like using a private browsing window. The exception that when you Quit the WebApp and then launch it again it remembers all of the website data. So you'll still be logged in. But all that information is stored separate from Safari. So, for instance, with a site like Goggle you can search Goggle in Safari and not be locked into Goggle. But you can have a WebApp for, say, gmail where you are logged in. They would be separate. Just because you're logged in on the WebApp doesn't mean that you're logged in to Goggle in Safari. 
Now that I'm here I can browse around and as long as I stay within this site I will stay here in the App. However, if I click on a link to an external site it opens up in Safari, buts as long as you stay on this site it will continue to open up the pages in this WebApp. Now you'll probably notice though that sometimes you can leave a website, like in this case I know that I'm at Discussion.com but if I go to the Apple Home Page here it stays in the WebApp. Because websites can indicate when sites are related to them. So in this case Apple.com and Discussions@Apple.com have each indicated that they are related to each other and so you'll stay within the WebApp. A lot of websites will do this and because WebApps have been around for awhile in third party browsers there's already a lot of these established relationships out there. But note if I were to go to the bottom of this page here and click on iCloud.com then that launches Safari because Apple has indicated that iCloud.com and Apple.com are in fact separate things and shouldn't be opened in the same WebApp. 
Now, the WebApp itself will remember your Settings separate from Safari as well. So, for instance, if I were to go to View and zoom in or zoom out it would remember the zoom amount and that will be separate from Safari. If I were to use Reader View it would remember also your history that is stored in the Back and Forward buttons. In addition there are some Settings that you should know about. Under General, you can change the Applications Name and change the starting point so you're not stuck with that starting point if you change your mind. Then you can also change the Icon. If you click here you can choose a new icon. So I've got a little png there and I have changed the icon to that. If I look in the Dock I can see it there. I can also choose whether or not Navigation Controls are shown and whether or not the color of the website, the background color, is used as part of the title bar. 
Under Privacy I can clear all the website data for this WebApp. Again not effecting Safari. I can also access Privacy & Security settings. So things like managing the Camera, Microphone, Screen Sharing, and Location access for this WebApp, they are all stored in System Settings in Privacy & Security. So this website hasn't asked for any location service access, microphone access, or anything like that. So I won't find it in the list there because it hasn't asked for it. But if it did then it would show up here as a separate WebApp and I could turn it On or Off. 
Now the one thing that might be giving you pause at this point is the fact that you have to have the WebApp in the Dock. But you don't, actually. So let's quit the WebApp here and I've got it here in the Dock. If I Control Click on it and go to Options and then look Show In Finder it will reveal where this really is. It is in my Applications Folder but not my regular Applications Folder, as you can guess right away because this is a really small list. Instead if you look here at the path you can see it is in my Home Folder Applications Folder, which makes sense because this is an app for this User Account on my Mac, not for all User Accounts. So it should be in here. But because it is in this Applications Folder it means it will appear in Launchpad. In fact I can find the two WebApps right there in Launchpad. So you can use Launchpad to launch it. I can easily just search for it here and launch it that way. You can also use Spotlight to launch it. You can see it comes up there in Spotlight. Since you know where this actual file is you could move it somewhere else. But I say that it is probably better to actually create an alias somewhere else. So I'm going to drag it to the Desktop here, but hold down the Command and Option key, and you can see it will create an alias. So I've got an alias to launch this app sitting on my Desktop. You can put an alias anywhere you want. Create a folder somewhere else or any place that is convenient. 
Note this is also how you would Delete a WebApp if you don't want it anymore. Of course get rid of it out of the Dock and then Delete the dot app file that is here in your Applications Folder and it is all gone. Note that you may want to go into WebApp first and clear all website data just to make sure it doesn't leave anything behind. 
Note that sometimes in Safari you'll see at the top a little indicator to Open in a WebApp. So if you go to the webpage and recognize that you have a WebApp for this site that then you can just use this little Open button here and it will go to the WebApp. You could always Dismiss this here on the left and then it won't come up again. 
WebApps also have their own Notification Setting. So if you go to System Settings and then you go to Notifications and then you'll look through the Application Notifications here you'll find a WebApp listed if it has requested permission to send you notifications. In this case neither site for the WebApps has requested notifications for permission so they are not listed here. But if they do and you accept then you'll find a way to shut it off by going into System Settings. 
Note that one limitations of WebApps is you can't use Safari extensions with them. So if there is a website that you use all the time but you need an extension to use it then you won't be able to use that extension with that WebApp you create. You have to stick with using that in Safari. 
There are lots of uses for WebApps. Of course you can turn your favorite sites into WebApps. You can turn sites where you don't want to normally be logged in but sometimes you do into WebApps and only be logged into the WebApp. Or say you use a social media site but you use it for work and personal use. You could have WebApps for each one of those. So you're logged into a different account for each one. 
So WebApps can be good not just for convenience but also for privacy. You could be logged into a SearchEngine or social media site only in the WebApp that you created and then when you're browsing the web in Safari you're not logged into that service and therefore they can't track you as easily.
So give WebApps a try with your favorite sites. Keep in mind they are not for everybody. Some people just prefer to browse all of their websites in their regular browser where other may want to create a whole series of different WebApps and use those for the main sites that they work with everyday. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 17 Responses to “How To Create and Use Safari Web Apps On Your Mac”

Sheldon

1 year ago

Thanks bunches

Greg Turnbull

1 year ago

It appears that sites that automatically log you out defeat the cookie feature (e.g., Banks, insurors, medical portals. Or am I missing something?

Gary Rosenzweig

1 year ago

Greg: If a site automatically logs you out in Safari, then it will automatically log you out in a web app. It isn't defeating anything, it is just how the site works.

lauren

1 year ago

thanks so much for this gary. I had been employing this option since you talked about it in one of your recent posts but I didn't like the default google logo and wanted to change it and I didn't know I could.

Greg Turnbull

1 year ago

OK, I get it. Poor choice of words by me.

It “defeats” one of the purposes/advantages of using web apps, that is cookie maingenance.
In the meantime I’m testing whether and when it makes a difference if you “quit” the web app vs merely closing it.

Gary Rosenzweig

1 year ago

Greg: So the way cookies on websites work is that they have an expiration time. A social media or shopping site may set that at 2 weeks or more. Some at a year. Sites where security is a first priority, like bank sites, usually set them very low, like 20 minutes or even 5 minutes. Doesn't matter if you close the site (or quit the web app) the cookie expiration is the same. This doesn't change with Web Apps (I imagine if it did there would be a worldwide security freak-out about it).

Bill Braun

1 year ago

Gary,

What about sites that require 2-factor security? The first time I log in, I get the code in messages and then create a web app. Will I be able to get back in the next day using that web app? Does it again ask for that 2nd authentication, or does it remember and use the one I did the first time I logged in?

Gary Rosenzweig

1 year ago

Bill: Two-factor works the same. Logging into websites works the same. If the site is one that logs you out after a time, it will log you out after the same amount of time in a Web App as it does in a regular browser. That doesn't change. Of course it can't "remember' the two-factor code and use it again, because the whole point of two-factor codes is they change. So you need the updated code the next time, just like in a regular browser. If you have your two-factor code generated through an SMS message, then you'll do the same the next time. I don't know how long you are logged in for with that site. Could be weeks or months (social media, shopping), could be minutes (banks, financial). But it is the same for a Web App as in a regular browser.

Ian Waddington

1 year ago

It seems that Safari extensions are not support in Web Apps therefore 1Password does not work the same as it would in Safari resulting in the need to cut and paste, ID, Password and MFA from 1Password. This seems enough to make Web Apps less usable just now, certainly for web pages that require a login.

Gary Rosenzweig

1 year ago

Ian: So use the built-in password manager for those. I use both 1Password and the built-in password manager. If you have, say, 200 passwords stored, you wouldn't even need to have those all in the system password manager, just the one you need for that one site that is part of that Web App. If you have 3 Web Apps, it would just be 3 passwords.

hult

1 year ago

Not sure why complicated questions about this simple thing. To me, it's just an iconification of the plain old bookmark. Plus, separate history maintenance to that specific bookmarked site. That's it! Hard for me to see much of value of this feature, as one can always go to a bookmark in private/normal (user's choice). Sites will work as usual depending on site's feature, nothing to do with this app. In fact, I don't feel like calling it app at all :)
Also, already in iOS since long time. Thank

Gary Rosenzweig

1 year ago

hult: Also, separate website data. That's the main part. So you can have two web apps for a social media site, each logged into a different account.

hult

1 year ago

yeah, thanks Gary!

Wallace Aiken

1 year ago

Hi Gary,
For some reason I couldn't make the "auto login" feature work with this. I tried 4 different websites. I logged in and then saved the app just as you show. Every time I ran the app from the dock, the site would want me to log in again. No big deal, I still like and can use the "using Safari without using Safari" concept. Thanks!

Gary Rosenzweig

1 year ago

Wallace: There is no "auto login." It works the same as in Safari. For instance, if the site logs you out automatically after 20 minutes, it will do that in Safari or a Web App. The Web App doesn't override that.

Elizabeth Allgood

1 year ago

Gary - in relation to Wallace's comment above, at approximately the 6 minute mark you say "when you Quit the WebApp and then launch it again it remembers all of the website data. So you'll still be logged in."
This appears to be false. If you click "quit" on the app it logs you out in my testing.

Gary Rosenzweig

1 year ago

Elizabeth: Right, it remembers all of the website data. But it is the same website data as in a browser. If the website data expires, then you need to log in again. If the website data doesn't expire then you may still be logged in. Exactly the same if you were doing it in a browser and you quit the browser and the next time you launched the browser the website data has expired.

Comments Closed.

How To Create and Use Safari Web Apps On Your Mac

Comments: 17 Responses to “How To Create and Use Safari Web Apps On Your Mac”

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