I'd really like certain google apps (drive, sheets, docs, mail) to open in their own dedicated windows instead of browser tabs. With Chrome PWAs, this should be possible. But when I try to go the usual route (open in chrome, triple dots menu >> save and share >> install as app), I get the following behavior:
- When I click on the app icon from my computer it just opens up the webpage in my default browser (no matter if the default browser is chrome or something else)
- When I go to the website, I get an "open with" option in the nav bar that shows me my installed app. Clicking that just closes the tab with sheets in it.
- Going to the "open with" option that appears under "save and share" once I've installed as app does the same thing
- Choosing to save the page as a shortcut with its own window does the same thing as installing it as an app, apparently (even if I've uninstalled the app)
Note that the local files for these apps are getting saved to /Applications/, while normally behaving Chrome PWAs and site shortcuts get saved to ~/Applications/Chrome Apps/
This happens with Drive, Sheets, Docs, and GMail. Possibly others I haven't tried. It does NOT happen with Colab.
What I've done so far:
- deleted and reinstalled all the apps
- uninstalled and reinstalled drive and the whole offline google suite
- tried to save as shortcut under different names (just changes the name of the app on spotlight, but not the actual location in my computer)
I'm on a Mac with Apple silicon running Sonoma 14.4.1, and Chrome Version 126.0.6478.182 (Official Build) (arm64).
Possibly related: a few months ago I had to change the user name and home folder of my account. Bunch of stuff got broken by that because it referred to paths under my old user folder, which I've been slowly encountering and fixing since then.
Also, I used to be able to do this with all of these apps.
