How to Add a Website to the Home Screen on iPhone and Android

Your Android phone, iPhone, or iPad home screen isn’t just for apps. Whatever device you’re using, you can add a website shortcut to the home screen for easy access. In some cases, you can even make the website work like an app.

How to Add a Website to the Home Screen on iPhone or iPad

On iPhone or iPad, you can only add websites to the home screen with Safari. Browsers such as Google Chrome are not able to do it.

First, open Safari and navigate to the website you’d like to add to the home screen. Tap the share button (up arrow within a square) in the toolbar.

Scroll through the share sheet and tap “Add to Home Screen.” If you don’t see this option, it can be added from the “Edit Actions” option at the bottom of the share sheet.

Next, you can edit the name for the home screen shortcut and tap “Add.”

The website shortcut will be added to your home screen! You can move it around and put it in folders just like an app icon, but it won’t appear in the App Library.

How to Add a Website to the Android Home Screen

Unlike the iPhone, it’s possible to add websites to the Android home screen from a variety of browsers. We’ll demonstrate with Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox.

First, open Google Chrome and navigate to the website you’d like to add to the home screen. Tap the three-dot menu icon in the top right.

Select “Add to Home Screen” from the menu.

Now you can edit the name for the home screen shortcut and tap “Add.”

A pop-up from your home screen launcher will appear, and you can tap and hold to drag the icon to the home screen, or automatically add it by tapping “Add to Home Screen.”

For Microsoft Edge, select the three-dot menu icon in the toolbar, then tap “Add to Phone.”

With Mozilla Firefox, tap the three-dot menu icon in the toolbar, then select “Add to Home Screen.”

That’s it! The website shortcut app icon can be moved around and added to folders just like an app, but it won’t appear in the app drawer.

How to Make a Website an App on iPhone or iPad

Progressive web apps can be added to the iPhone and iPad home screen in the same way as regular websites, but they open in their own instance, like a native app. The process is the same as adding a website to the home screen.

Open Safari and go to the web app you’d like to place on the home screen. Tap the share button (up arrow within a square) in the toolbar.

Select “Add to Home Screen” from the share sheet. If you don’t see this option, tap “Edit Actions” at the bottom of the share sheet and add it from there.

Next, change the name of the shortcut if you’d like, and tap “Add.”

The web app will be added to your home screen! When you launch the web app, it will open in its own independent instance, not just a tab in Safari.

How to Make a Website an App on Android

Progressive web apps on Android can be “installed” in a similar way to native apps. When you “install” a web app from the browser, it opens in its own instance like a native app. Mozilla Firefox on Android cannot install web apps.

Sometimes, a web app will tell you it can be installed. If that’s the case, simply tap the “Install” button.

In Google Chrome, tap the three-dot menu icon and select “Install App.”

Web apps installed from Chrome are added to the app drawer along with the home screen. They even appear in the Android share menu.

In Microsoft Edge, tap the three-dot menu icon and select “Add to Phone.”

Web apps installed by Edge will only appear on the home screen, but they still open in their own instance like a native app.

For websites you access often, this is a great time-saving trick. It’s right up there with in-app home screen shortcuts as an undervalued feature. As more web apps become available, there’s less of a need for native apps.

If you’re using a Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC, you can add website shortcuts to your taskbar. You can also pin websites as apps to your Mac’s dock.