Electronify

You want to make a native-looking wrapper for WhatsApp Web (or any web page).

electronify 'web.whatsapp.com'

You're done.

Introduction

Electronify is a command-line tool to easily create a “desktop app” for any web site with minimal fuss. Apps are wrapped by Electron (which uses Chromium under the hood) in an OS executable (.app, .exe, etc) usable on Windows, macOS and Linux.

I built this because I grew tired of having to Alt-Tab to my browser and then search through numerous open tabs when using Messenger or Whatsapp Web (HN thread). Electronify features:

• Automatically retrieval of app icon / name
• Injection of custom JS & CSS
• Many more, see the API docs or electronify --help

Installation

Install Electronify globally with npm install -g electronify . Requirements:

• macOS 12+ / Windows / Linux
• Node.js >= 22.12 and npm >= 10

Optional dependencies:

• ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick to convert icons. Be sure convert + identify or gm are in your $PATH.
• Wine to build Windows apps from non-Windows platforms. Be sure wine is in your $PATH.

Or install with Docker (click to expand)

• Pull the image from Docker Hub: docker pull meethelio/electronify
• ... or build it yourself: docker build -t local/electronify . (in this case, replace electronify/ in the below examples with local/)

By default, electronify --help will be executed. To build e.g. a Gmail app into ~/electronify-apps,

docker run --rm -v ~/electronify-apps:/target/ meethelio/electronify https://mail.google.com/ /target/

You can pass Electronify flags, and mount volumes to pass local files. E.g. to use an icon,

docker run --rm -v ~/my-icons-folder/:/src -v $TARGET-PATH:/target meethelio/electronify --icon /src/icon.png --name whatsApp -p linux -a x64 https://web.whatsapp.com/ /target/

Or install with Snap & AUR (click to expand)

These repos are not managed by Electronify maintainers; use at your own risk. If using them, for your security, please inspect the build script.

• Snap
• AUR

Usage

To create an app for medium.com, simply electronify 'medium.com'

Electronify will try to determine the app name, and well as other options that you can override. For example, to override the name, electronify --name 'My Medium App' 'medium.com'

Read the API docs or run electronify --help to learn about command-line flags and configure your app.

Troubleshooting

See CATALOG.md for site-specific ideas & workarounds contributed by the community.

If this doesn’t help, go look at our issue tracker.

Development

Help welcome on bugs and feature requests!

Docs: Developer / build / hacking, API / flags, Changelog.

License: MIT.