Latest Chrome build lets Mac users launch files in Chrome Web apps

Google is experimenting with a new feature in the latest Canary build of Chrome that will allow Mac OS X users to open files from Finder directly in Chrome web apps running in the browser. As highlighted in the image above from Googler Francois Beaufort, that means you’ll be able to launch, for example, a text document in a Chrome web app like Text instead of using TextEdit, Word or another application installed natively on your Mac. Google is presumably hoping the feature will make using Chrome web apps a smoother experience when transitioning from the browser and back to local file management and native apps.

For now the feature is only available if specifically enabled (details here) in the Chrome Canary build, but there’s a good chance this will eventually make its way to the beta and public releases of Chrome for all Mac users.