Can I use Add to home screen in Chrome on an iOS device?

Question

I know I can use Chrome on a desktop or Android device to “Add to Home screen”. I know I can use “Add to homes screen” in Safari iOS.

But, can I use “Add to home screen” feature in Chrome for iOS?

Solution 1

No. There is no such option in Chrome for iOS. I'm using iOS 12 on iPhone X with latest Chrome and I don't see such option. Safari for iOS have "Add to home screen" for a long time now. Its just the "Service worker" support that came recently in 11.3 version .

Notably, Chrome for iOS is just an wrapping layer on top of Safari's WebKit and what it can perform at OS level is heavily restricted in that sense. Depending on when and how Apple opens its API for 3rd party WebKit based browser implementer for iOS, we can hope to see this sometime in future.

But still not an option for now (as of May 2022)

Solution 2

Actually there is an application ”Shortcuts”, it can run any action on your iPhone or iPad. You can create app shortcut. It works with Chrome.

Here is the app link

https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/shortcuts/id1462947752?l=en

Solution 3

You can add a website to an iPhone or iPad Home Screen with Safari (not Chrome but maybe it's helpful):

• Launch Safari
• Navigate to the desired website
• Tap the "share" button
• Select "Add to Home Screen" icon

That's all. Hope it helps.

Solution 4

After you add the shortcut link with safari, edit that link and put the prefix "googlechromes://(YOUR URL)" and safari will ask you to open in chrome and you just do open.

View more solutions

Comments

[Aaron Wallentine]

Thanks for the definitive and informative answer. Seems like this used to be an option for iOS Chrome ... Did that change? If so, when?

[Anand]

To my knowledge, this was never an option. If they had that option, they should’ve already overcome the mentioned limitation and I don’t see why they would pull back. I’ve never seen one. Any reference on this was an option in the past ?

[Aaron Wallentine]

Probably just an error in my memory then. I'm just used to irrational anti-features and disappearing options in software, especially on iOS. Thank you for clarifying.

[Wayne F. Kaskie]

The question specifically states that I know how to do this and that I do not want to.

[Sergey Ponomarev]

Is any reason why Chrome doesn’t support this? Is this a restriction of iOS?

[Anand]

@SergeyPonomarev Because chrome for iOS doesn't use the same chromium engine and its just a wrapper on Safari's webkit.

[Sergey Ponomarev]

But does it really matter? I just want to add my PWA to home screen and it’s not so important for me that internally it will be WebKit

[Anand]

It's not about whether developer or end user cares about browser engine. Chrome need to have access to APIs to support Add to home screen feature, which they currently don't have due to how it sits on top of webkit in iOS. Unless there is a huge outcry from all sides blaming Apple for being so restrictive and not supporting web standards, they wont loosen their iron grip on it. After all, they made $54 Billion in 2019 alone from App store. They don't want to make this a popular option and loose that money. @SergeyPonomarev

[suman j]

This can be accepted answer . It works as workaround

[KHMan]

I dont see a way to edit the link

[formigarafa]

Not really, or at least not necessary, as user could go to Safari to do the same job if workaround counts.

[Anusha Dharmasena]

This workaround is perfect.

[Blue Bamboo]

We can do it according to this video youtube.com/watch?v=LWRdBywm4Zo However, when I browse the cnet.com website I don't see that popup. I also developed some code similar to this demo eg a2hs.glitch.me but seems like it does not pop up on my iPhone X nor Android phones. So I may have to do something similar to the example from this link github.com/cubiq/add-to-homescreen