Macpreneur

The Hidden macOS Feature That Turns AI Into an App Instantly

• Damien Schreurs • Season 7 • Episode 165

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In this episode of Macpreneur, I address the challenges of using ChatGPT on a Mac, particularly for users still using a Mac with an Intel processor.

I explore various solutions, including WebCatalog, Chrome web apps, and native apps like MacGPT, highlighting their pros and cons. 

Ultimately, I reveal a hidden feature available since macOS 14 Sonoma that allows the creation of a lightweight, standalone ChatGPT web app directly from Safari. 

This episode is geared towards solopreneurs looking to streamline their AI usage without cluttering their storage or relying on third-party tools.

Highlights

  • [00:00] Teaser  
  • [01:09] Welcome  
  • [01:42] Why Other Pro Solutions Failed  
  • [04:14] Exploring WebCatalog and Its Drawbacks  
  • [07:25] Chrome Web Applications: A Lightweight Alternative  
  • [08:50] MacGPT: A Freemium Option  
  • [10:37] Setapp Solutions: Unite and Coherence X  
  • [12:17] The Ultimate Solution: Safari's Add to Dock Feature  
  • [14:52] Conclusion: Simplifying Your Workflow  
  • [15:25] Bonus: Discover Your AI Archetype  
  • [16:04] Outro  

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Introduction


Damien Schreurs

If you're using ChatGPT on a Mac, you have probably realized that the official Mac app is... well, (laughs) it's a bit complicated.

First, if like me, you still have a trusty Intel iMac in your workflow, you can't even install it.

It is Apple Silicon only.

But even on my M2 MacBook Pro, I quickly hit a wall.

I can use custom GPTs, but I cannot create or edit them inside the app.

So, I went on a hunt.

I tested everything to get a proper ChatGPT app experience on my Intel machine.

I tried the popular wrapper apps, I tried Chrome shortcuts, I tried paid tools, and most of them were either storage hogs, abandoned by their developers, or just plain buggy.

But the solution, it was hiding in plain sight inside macOS all along.

Nova AI

Welcome to Macpreneur, the show for seasoned solopreneurs looking to streamline their business on a Mac.

Unlock the secrets to saving time and money with your host and technology mentor, Damien Schreurs.


The Problem with the Official ChatGPT Mac App

Damien Schreurs

Hello, hello.

In today's episode, I'm going to save you a ton of trial and error.

I'm going to show you how to turn ChatGPT, or actually any AI chatbot, into a standalone lightweight Mac app that runs on any Mac, Intel and Apple Silicon.

We're going to skip the paid tool and the abandonware.

Instead we are going to use a native feature that is faster, safer, and completely free.

But first, let me explain why the other pro solutions failed so you don't make the same mistakes that I did.

I currently run a dual machine setup.

I have an Intel iMac from 2020 and an M2 MacBook Pro.

As I said earlier, there is an official OpenAI app.

However, it is Apple Silicon only.

It completely ignores Intel users.

And because I'm a power user of ChatGPT, there is a feature that is missing, and that's the ability to update custom GPTs.

So for instance, in the native Mac app, yes, we can look and see the GPTs, our GPTs or those that we have used from the GPT store.

But as soon as you want to edit it, you need to go to the browser.

Same thing if you want to create a new GPT, there is no option here in the Mac app.

Now, there are some advantages of installing the native ChatGPT app on an Apple Silicon Mac.

So for instance, there is an option to record the screen, so you can basically ask ChatGPT to help you with what it sees, so you could give it, for instance, an app window and then ask it questions.

So that's one thing.

You can also connect the native Mac app for ChatGPT to local applications.

So you can connect that to, for instance, Apple Notes, I have BBEdit, but it could also be Visual Code Studio, Script Editor, Terminal, TextEdit, and Xcode.

It's, it's mostly for developers, but for anyone else, just the ability to connect the Mac app of ChatGPT to Apple Note, and then query it based on the note that is currently active in Apple Notes.

This is a great feature.

However, as much as it is interesting, most of the time that I spend on a computer is on my Intel iMac, not my MacBook Pro.

So, I needed absolutely a solution to have ChatGPT as an app on my Mac.


Failed Solution #1: WebCatalog's Storage Problem

Damien Schreurs

And the first thing I turned to was, uh, WebCatalog.

So this is a trusty application that I've been using now for a while that allows to turn, uh, any website into an app.

What I really, really like about WebCatalog is the ability to not only turn just one website into an app, but to create actually mini-applications, and which means a collection of apps.

So what it means is that I can have one ChatGPT app, and actually I created one ChatGPT app that had several subspaces and that I could access from a left sidebar.

And so what I had was chatgpt.com with my paid ChatGPT Plus subscription.

Then I had a second subspace that would access directly the help documents of ChatGPT, a third subspace to access platforms.openai.com, which is where I could create API keys and is basically being able to use ChatGPT, but not from the app, but for, from other applications.

And then because I have a second free ChatGPT account, I created another subspace that would allow me to basically switch to ChatGPT, but my free account, and I didn't need to log out and log in again.

So, this is really great.

However, (laughs) at one point on my iMac, I was going low on storage space and I could not figure out why.

And so, uh, I launched an application called OmniDisk Sweeper.

And this application can actually look into the library folder, which, which contains usually hidden files, and cache files, and stuff that I use by applications, but are not directly accessible from the documents folder, for instance.

And (laughs) there what I realized is that all my web catalog apps, so not only ChatGPT, but I have, I have many web catalog, uh, spaces, all of them were taking 80 gigabytes of storage on my internal hard drive, and I was like, "Wow."

And so what happened is I realized that each subspace can take between 200 megabytes and 1.5 to sometimes two gigabytes per subspace.

Um, (laughs) which means that, yes, actually it's, it's a nice feature to have an app, but those apps, those mini apps, they take a lot of space.

So what I ended up doing is really removing all the unnecessary subspaces, removing all the web catalog apps that actually I was not really using, and I switched for a while to another solution, which was using Chrome web applications.


Failed Solution #2: Chrome Web Apps and MacGPT

Damien Schreurs

So in case you don't know, in, um, Google Chrome, if you are on the website, if you click on the three dots in the top right corner, then you have, um, Cast, Save and Share.

At the bottom, you will see "Install page as app."

And so it's also possible to turn any website into a dedicated web app.

And the good news is that it doesn't take a lot of space.

It's actually very, very lightweight.

However, I quickly realized that there was a small (laughs) glitch or issue, is that you can launch such a web app without the need for Chrome to be running.

However, (laughs) when you have the mini web app running and Chrome running, if you decide to quit Google Chrome, it will close all the mini web app at the same time.

So that was a bit painful, because (laughs) sometimes I wanted to declutter my desktop, and inadvertently, I was closing all my apps.

So I turned to a third application, and this was MacGPT.

So MacGPT is a freemium, donation-ware application that is available on Gumroad.

And with MacGPT, you have actually two modes.

You have what they call the native mode, which is you have a conversation inside a window, but you don't need to be logged in to your ChatGPT account.

Actually, for this to work, you need an API key, an application programming interface key, which is then built totally separately from a ChatGPT account.

But there is also the web mode, where you can then access the ChatGPT website, log in with your account, and then you have basically access to the web app.

So it was like, yeah, two things that are interesting.

The problem is that that web window was logging me out all the time.

So almost every time I wanted to use MacGPT, I had to log back in again.

And on top of that, it hasn't been updated since May 15th, 2024.

So at the time of recordings, we are in December 2025, it's more than a year and a half ago that they've updated, the developer has updated, uh, MacGPT.

And as a result, the native version cannot exploit the latest models, uh, through the API.

I'm really blocked to, um, older version of the, of the model.


Failed Solution #3: Setapp Alternatives

Damien Schreurs

And so as a Setapp subscriber, I have access to some applications that actually do something similar to web catalog.

And one of those application is called Unite, and that application allows same thing, to turn any website into an application.

However, I quickly realized that there were some issues, and actually, I'm not the only one.

Uh, on the Setapp website itself, the rating is 68%, so it's not very good.

Some people have issues, um, logging in into websites, and, um, there is another solution on Setapp called Coherence X, and it's slightly better, 74% rating on Setapp.

However, there are some issues, um, in terms of views and so on.

And so in the end, yeah, I tried them, but it didn't stick.

And because EasyTECH is on Google Workspace, so I'm a heavy user of Gmail, Google Calendar, and so on.

Anyway, I'm using Google Chrome a lot, and so for whichever Google applications, if I want a standalone application f- o- of a Google app, then I will use the feature in Google Chrome to save a page as an app.


The Winning Solution: Safari's "Add to Dock"

Damien Schreurs

So what's the solution?

What's the thing that I turned into then finally for ChatGPT?

Well, (laughs) since macOS 14 Sonoma, Apple is now offering the ability to convert, for free, any website into an application, create an icon that is available in the doc.

And so actually if you visit chatgpt.com, and then Safari, you go to file menu, then add to doc, it will create a mini web app for ChatGPT.

And what is nice is that not only is it lightweight, so it doesn't take a lot of space, but on top of that, it's really a separate process than Safari.

So you can have Safari open, ChatGPT created like that from Safari open as well, and if you quit Safari, it will not close the ChatGPT web app created from Safari.

And where are all those applications, web applications stored?

Well, if you go into your home folder, you will discover there is an applications subfolder inside your home folder, and in that application folder, you will see then all the apps that you have created from the Safari Add to Dock feature.

This is great because it works both on Intel and Apple Silicon, uh, knowing that, again, minimum macOS 14 Sonoma.

On top of that, I forgot to say that, um, it also respect and in- include all the installed Safari extensions.

So if you have one password, if you have different kind of extensions in Safari, um, even when you are in the ChatGPT mini- mini application web app, you have access to those extension.


Conclusion and Next Steps

Damien Schreurs

And, um, again, for ChatGPT, now I'm using the Safari web app.

However, for Gemini and NotebookLM, because those two applications are from Google, and I believe they work better inside Google Chrome than inside Safari, I'm still using the other version, the install, uh, page as an app from Google Chrome for these two.

Very good.

So, my fellow Macpreneur, you don't need to overcomplicate this.

You don't need to buy expensive wrapper apps or clutter your hard drive with multiple gigabytes of cached file just to have ChatGPT in your doc.

Since macOS 14 Sonoma, Apple gave us the tool, and frankly, it is the most robust way to keep your AI assistant ready to go, whether you are on an M3 Mac or working a classic Intel iMac.

Now having the right tool is step number one, but knowing how to use AI to actually save time is step number two.

The good news is that put together a quick quiz to help you discover your AI archetype.

Are you an AI dabbler, an integrator, or maybe an automator?

Head over to macpreneur.com/aistage, in one word, or check the link in the description.

It takes less than two minutes, and you will get a personalized roadmap with the next three steps that you should take to level up your AI game on your Mac.

And if you found this episode helpful, please share it with a fellow solopreneur.

It would mean the world to me.

And until next time, I'm Damien Schreurs, wishing you a productive day.

Nova AI

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