Howto get a standalone Asana app in OS X

19 Apr 2015

If you spend a lot of time in Asana, you might want a standalone app for it in your dock like this:

This is pretty easy, and takes only a minute or two to set up.

All you need to do is use the free Fluid app to package the web app as a desktop app.

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UPDATE (February 25, 2016): I’ve switched from Fluid to Epichrome, which uses Chrome instead of Safari. The rest of the process is very similar, but Epichrome has the added benefit of letting me install Chrome extensions in these standalone apps, like the excellent Vimium.

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After you’ve downloaded and installed Fluid, run it and the “Create a Fluid App” window should appear.

For Asana, you’re going to want these settings:

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URL: https://app.asana.com/
Name: Asana
Location: Applications
Icon: your pick!

You can use the default favicon, but on higher resolution devices it comes out fuzzy looking. I use this sharp image from Bryan Hoffman at Spigot Design. This one from Todd Cavanaugh at Asana Training is also nice.

Another nice benefit of making Asana into a standalone app this way is that now you can quickly open it with Spotlight (or Alfred etc) when you need it.

And of course, this method works the same for almost any webapp– Gmail, Trello, Github, Beeminder, whatever. It’s especially handy when the creators haven’t been able to make a native app themselves yet.

Hope this makes things easier for you.