Chrome’s ‘Add To Taskbar’ Is Broken In Windows 10, Here’s What To Do Instead

With every passing year, it feels like I use more and more webapps instead of desktop apps. Chrome’s “Add to Taskbar” is a great way to make those webapps feel like desktop apps, but it’s slightly broken in Windows 10.

If you try to add a site to Windows’ taskbar, you’ll probably notice that it doesn’t show up at all. After trying this about six times today, I discovered that the feature still half works: it will create an app shortcut, just not on your taskbar. After clicking “Add to Taskbar”, you have two choices:

Grab it from the Start menu:

1. Click on Windows 10’s Start menu and you should see the app shortcut under “Recently Added”.
2. Right-click on the app’s icon and choose Pin to Taskbar. It should appear on your taskbar.

Grab it from Chrome’s app launcher:

If you’ve turned off “Recently Added” in the Start menu (or it doesn’t show up for some reason), do this:

1. Type chrome://apps in Chrome’s address bar and press enter. This should take you to Chrome’s “app launcher”.
2. You should see the shortcut there. Right-click on it and make sure “Open in Window” is selected.
3. Click the app’s icon to launch it. Its icon should appear in your Windows taskbar.
4. Right-click on the icon in your taskbar and choose “Pin to Taskbar”.

This was frustrating me a fair amount this morning, so I hope it helps some people.