How to Convert Any Website into a Desktop App for Free

Want to use your favorite website as a proper desktop app — without browser tabs, distractions, or wasted memory? In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to convert any website into a desktop app in under 30 seconds using a free, open-source tool called Pake.

What is Pake?

Pake is an open source tool built with Rust that lets you package any website into a lightweight desktop app. It already has over 50,000 stars on GitHub — and for good reason.

Unlike Chrome’s “Install as App” option (which still runs inside Chrome), Pake builds a truly standalone app that uses almost half the memory.

Step 1 — Install the Required Software

Before running Pake, you need to install three things. Download them from the links below:

• Node.js → https://nodejs.org/en/download
• VS Build Tools → https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/visual-cpp-build-tools/
• Rust → https://rustup.rs/

Node.js

Just double-click the installer and click Next all the way through. Done.

VS Build Tools

Double-click and install. When the installer loads, check the box that says “Desktop development with C++” — then click Install and wait for it to finish.

Rust

This one opens a terminal window. Just press Enter to proceed with the standard installation. It’ll take a few minutes to download everything.

Step 2 — Set Up Your Workspace

Open your terminal and run the following commands one by one.

Create a folder to store your apps:

mkdir apps

Move into that folder:

cd apps

Install Pake globally:

npm install -g pake-cli

Note: Copy the command starting from npm — do not include the p before it.

Verify the installation:

pake --version

If you see a version number, you’re good to go.

Step 3 — Convert Any Website into a Desktop App

Now the fun part. Here’s the basic command:

pake [WEBSITE URL] --name "App Name"

Example — YouTube:

pake https://www.youtube.com --name "YouTube"

Hit Enter. For the very first time, this will take around 10–15 minutes because Pake needs to download some dependencies. After that, any website you convert will take less than 30 seconds.

Once the build is complete, go to your apps folder. You’ll see a .msi installer file. Just double-click it, click Next, and install.

That’s it — you now have a proper YouTube desktop app.

Optional — Set a Custom Icon

Want to use your own icon instead of the default one? Add the --icon flag:

pake [WEBSITE URL] --name "App Name" --icon "path/to/icon.ico"

Example — Google Docs with a custom icon:

pake https://docs.google.com --name "Google Docs" --icon "C:/Users/YourName/icons/gdocs.ico"

To create an .ico file, just take any PNG logo and convert it using a free PNG to ICO converter online.

All Commands at a Glance