How to Install WalletMap on Your Phone, Tablet, or Desktop

If you've been using WalletMap on your laptop, here's something you might not know: you can also pin it to your phone and use it just like any other app. No App Store, no Play Store — straight from the browser.

That's the PWA (Progressive Web App) trick. The whole thing takes about ten seconds, and the steps are a little different depending on your phone, your browser, and even your OS version — so this guide walks through all of them.

What's a PWA, exactly?

A PWA is basically a website that can be installed. Once it's on your device it sits on the home screen like any other app, opens full screen, and behaves the way you'd expect. No browser address bar staring back at you.

The bits that actually matter day to day:

• One tap to open — straight from the home screen, no typing in URLs
• Full screen — no browser chrome eating your viewport
• Always current — it updates itself, you never have to think about versions
• Cross-platform — iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows, Chromebook all work
• No app store gatekeeping — nothing to download, review, or approve; it installs straight from the site

Install on iPhone / iPad

iOS used to be the awkward one here — for a long time, Safari was the only browser on iPhone and iPad that could install a PWA to your home screen. That changed with iOS/iPadOS 16.4 (released March 2023). From that version onward, Safari, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Orion can all install PWAs, because every browser on iOS runs on Apple's WebKit engine under the hood — the browser you use is really just a different wrapper around the same rendering engine, so once Apple opened up the installation API, it became available everywhere at once.

If you're on an older iOS version (pre-16.4), Safari is still your only option. Given how long that update has been out, most people reading this are already past it — but if "Add to Home Screen" doesn't show up in Chrome or Firefox on your iPhone, that's the first thing to check.

One quirk worth knowing: iOS doesn't show an automatic "install this app" banner the way Android does. You have to trigger it yourself through the Share menu — there's no popup nudging you to install, so it's easy to miss if you don't know it's there.

Steps:

1. Open Safari (or Chrome / Edge / Firefox on iOS 16.4+) and go to walletmap.app
2. Tap the Share button at the bottom (the square with an arrow icon pointing up)
3. Scroll down the share sheet and tap "Add to Home Screen"
4. Confirm the name (defaults to "WalletMap") and tap "Add" in the top-right corner

Done. WalletMap shows up on your home screen — tap it and you're in.

Install on Android

Android generally makes installation more obvious than iOS does, but the exact path depends on which browser you're using. Here's how it works in the three most common ones.

Chrome is the most common and the most straightforward. Chrome supports the beforeinstallprompt API, so it can proactively suggest installing the site as an app; the official Chrome PWA installation guide covers the same path.

Steps (Chrome; see the official Chrome PWA installation guide):

1. Open Chrome and go to walletmap.app
2. Chrome usually shows an "Install app" banner at the bottom — just tap it
3. If you don't see the banner, tap the three-dot menu in the top-right and select "Install app"
4. Tap "Install" in the confirmation popup

Samsung Internet (the default browser on most Samsung phones) handles it a little differently, but it also supports the same install API, so the end result is the same standalone app icon.

Steps (Samsung Internet):

1. Open Samsung Internet and go to walletmap.app
2. Tap the hamburger menu in the bottom-right corner
3. Tap "Add page to"
4. Choose "Home screen"

Firefox for Android also supports installing sites to your home screen, though the menu wording varies a bit by version — look for "Install" or "Add to Home screen" in the menu. One thing to know: Firefox's support for running the installed app in a fully standalone window (no browser bar at all) is less complete than Chrome's, so depending on your Firefox version you might still see a thin address bar even after "installing." It still works fine day to day — it's just a slightly less polished standalone experience than Chrome gives you.

Steps (Firefox):

1. Open Firefox and go to walletmap.app
2. Tap the three-dot menu
3. Look for "Install" or "Add to Home screen" and tap it
4. Confirm in the popup that appears

Once it's installed — on any of the three — WalletMap shows up on your home screen and in the app drawer alongside everything else.

Install on Desktop

Yes, desktop too. The exact steps depend a bit on which browser and OS you're on.

Chrome / Edge on Windows and macOS both support installation the same way, and it's the easiest desktop path.

Steps (Chrome / Edge):

1. Open Chrome or Edge and go to walletmap.app
2. You'll see an install icon in the address bar (a small download icon or a plus sign, depending on the browser)
3. Click the icon, then click "Install" in the popup
4. WalletMap will open in its own window — on Windows it'll show up in your Start menu and taskbar; on macOS it'll appear in Launchpad and can be dragged to the Dock

macOS Safari can install PWAs too, but there's a version requirement worth knowing about: it needs macOS Sonoma (14) and Safari 17 or later. If you're on an older version of macOS, Safari won't show the "Add to Dock" option at all — in that case, your best bet is just to use Chrome or Edge instead, which don't have that restriction.

Steps (macOS Safari, 14+):

1. Open Safari and go to walletmap.app
2. From the menu bar, select "File" → "Add to Dock"
3. WalletMap will appear in your Dock

After installation on any of these, WalletMap runs in its own window — no tabs, no address bar — and behaves like any other desktop app you'd launch from your dock or taskbar.

Can't Install It? Here's What to Check

Sometimes the install option just doesn't show up, or it disappears after you've already looked at it once. A few common causes:

• You may have already installed it. Browsers hide the install prompt once a site is already installed as an app. Check your home screen, app drawer, or Start menu / Applications folder first — it might already be sitting there.
• You're in a private / incognito window. Private browsing modes generally block PWA installation outright, since the browser treats the session as temporary. Open the site in a normal window instead.
• Your browser is out of date. PWA support has improved a lot over the past few years, and older browser versions may be missing the install API entirely. Updating to the latest version usually fixes it.
• On iOS, you're looking in the wrong menu. There's no install banner on iOS — the option only lives inside the Share sheet, and it's easy to scroll past. If you don't see "Add to Home Screen" right away, keep scrolling down the share menu; it's usually a few rows below the top row of share targets.
• You're on a managed work or school device. Some organizations lock down device settings through mobile device management (MDM) policies, and PWA installation can be one of the things blocked. If you're on a company or school-issued phone or laptop and nothing above works, that's worth asking your IT department about.

If you've checked all of the above and it's still not working, the site itself works completely fine in a regular browser tab too — installing is a convenience, not a requirement.

What changes after installation?

A few things you'll notice once it's installed:

Full-screen mode — the browser address bar and toolbars are gone, so WalletMap actually owns the screen. Most obvious on phones.

It's its own app in the switcher — in your phone's multitasking view, WalletMap shows up as a separate card instead of being one of forty-seven Chrome tabs.

Your data is untouched — installing the PWA doesn't migrate, copy, or change anything. Same Google Sheets, same settings. The only thing that changes is how you launch it.

FAQ

Q: Do I need to create a new account? No. If you already have a WalletMap account, just sign in after installing — everything is the same.

Q: How is a PWA different from a native app? For everyday use, there's barely a difference — you get full screen, a home screen icon, and a standalone window. The main difference is that PWAs are installed from your browser, not from an app store.

Q: Can I install it on multiple devices? Yes. Install it on your phone, tablet, and computer. Since your data is read from your Google Sheets, you'll see the same information on every device.

Q: How much storage does it use? Very little. A PWA isn't a separate downloaded app package the way a native app is — it's mostly just a shortcut plus some cached files for faster loading, so it takes up a small fraction of the space a typical app store app would.

Q: Does it work offline? Not for viewing your data. Since WalletMap reads your financial data live from your own Google Sheets rather than storing it on our servers, you need an internet connection to pull the latest numbers. That's the same trade-off that makes the "your data stays in your Sheets" model possible in the first place.

Q: How do I uninstall it? Just like any other app — long-press the icon on your phone and delete it, or remove it from your app list on desktop.

Just Install It

Genuinely, ten seconds. Open walletmap.app in your phone browser right now and run through the steps above.

After that, checking your full asset picture is one tap from wherever you are.