How do I make a shared Figma or Notion link open in the desktop app instead of the browser?

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A link to a Figma file or a Notion page is just a web address. The browser doesn't know, and has no way to know on its own, that you'd rather this particular kind of link open in the app sitting in your dock instead of a new tab. So it opens a tab, every time, even though the exact same content would open faster and with better performance in the app you already installed for this.

Why browsers don't do this automatically

Deep linking, a link that opens directly inside a specific app rather than a generic browser tab, has to be deliberately supported by whatever's handling the click. Most operating systems and browsers don't have a general-purpose "check if there's an app for this and use it" behavior built in for arbitrary web links; it's either built into the specific app's own installer (some apps register themselves for their own domain and this works automatically) or it isn't, and you're stuck with a browser tab regardless of what's installed.

How Switchbar fixes this

Confirmed directly on WebCatalog's own Switchbar page: it intercepts the click before it opens anywhere and, for a defined list of tools, hands it to the matching desktop app instead of the browser. The tools named specifically are Notion, Figma, Jira, Linear, Trello and Airtable. If you have the relevant app installed, a shared link opens there directly; if you don't, Switchbar simply falls back to a normal browser tab, so nothing breaks for links to a tool you haven't installed.

This sits alongside Switchbar's other core job, routing links between different browsers, profiles and email clients, using the same underlying interception. If you're already using Switchbar for profile routing, deep linking to these specific apps works automatically without any separate setup step.

Step by step: how to set this up

1. Install Switchbar from WebCatalog's Switchbar page if you haven't already, and set it as your system's default link handler.
2. Make sure the relevant desktop apps are actually installed (Notion, Figma, Jira, Linear, Trello, whichever you use), since deep linking only works for tools where the app exists on that machine.
3. Click a shared link to test it, a Figma file link from a teammate, a Notion page link from a doc. It should open the installed app rather than a browser tab.
4. If it opens in the browser instead, confirm Switchbar is genuinely set as the default handler for links at the system level, not just installed; a half-finished default-browser setting is the most common reason deep linking doesn't kick in.
5. Repeat the check across each of the five supported tools you actually use, since confirming one working doesn't guarantee the others are configured the same way on a fresh install.

A realistic example: a design handoff workflow

Picture a small product team where a designer shares Figma file links constantly, in Slack, in tickets, in email, and a developer who has the Figma desktop app installed specifically because it's faster and keeps design review separate from a dozen other browser tabs. Without deep linking, every single shared link undoes that setup, opening yet another browser tab the developer then has to notice, decide they'd rather be in the app, and manually reopen there. With Switchbar's deep linking working, every link just lands where they actually wanted to work in the first place, with zero extra clicks. Multiply that across a team of five or six people clicking shared design links several times a day, and the saved clicks aren't the real win, it's the lost context: every unwanted tab is a small interruption to whatever you were already doing, and removing those interruptions matters more over a full day than the few seconds any single click actually costs. For the wider tab problem, see stopping the loss of your CRM, inbox and quote tool among 12 browser tabs.

What this doesn't cover

Deep linking through Switchbar is limited to the specific apps it names: Notion, Figma, Jira, Linear, Trello and Airtable. A link to a tool outside that list opens in the browser as normal, since there's no general catch-all "detect any installed app" behavior described on WebCatalog's own page. If the tool you care about isn't on that list, this specific feature won't help, though the rest of Switchbar's browser and profile routing still applies to it as a normal web link. Worth checking WebCatalog's own page periodically if the list matters to you, since a product actively adding features is a reasonable candidate to expand supported tools over time; it's already grown from five named apps to six since this was first checked, so treat the current list as a snapshot, not a permanent ceiling.

When to skip this

If you genuinely prefer working in the browser version of these tools, or don't have the desktop apps installed at all, there's nothing to fix here; deep linking only matters once you've already chosen to use a desktop app and the links keep ignoring that choice. It's also not worth setting up Switchbar purely for this one feature if you only occasionally click a Figma or Notion link; the value shows up once it's a daily, repeated annoyance. If you mainly want fewer tabs, one start page with all your work tools may be enough.

One more case worth naming: a mixed team where some people work in the browser version of a tool and others use the desktop app. Switchbar's routing is per-machine, so each person's own preference is respected individually; the designer who prefers the browser version of Notion keeps getting browser tabs, while the teammate with the desktop app installed gets deep links automatically, without either person's setup affecting the other's, and without anyone needing admin rights to change a shared company-wide setting just to get their own links behaving the way they want. That's a small but genuinely useful property for a team that hasn't standardized on one way of working, since nobody has to adopt someone else's workflow preference just to get links to behave.

A practical note if you're rolling this out for a team

Getting one person's machine set up is a five-minute job; getting a whole design or product team consistently using it is a habit problem more than a technical one. The most reliable way to make it stick: install and configure it on each person's machine during onboarding, as a standard step alongside setting up their other work accounts, rather than announcing the tool exists and hoping everyone installs it themselves. A tool that solves a minor daily annoyance is easy to skip installing when you're busy, even when you'd genuinely benefit from it. Getting every new hire into the same tools in one click covers that onboarding step.

How I'd approach this

For anyone who's deliberately installed desktop apps for Figma, Notion or similar tools, Switchbar closes an obvious, free gap, and it's worth setting up the same week you notice the problem rather than living with it. This isn't something that usually needs anything custom built around it; where I'd get involved is a team wanting consistent deep-linking behavior enforced across everyone's machines centrally, rather than each person setting up Switchbar individually, which edges toward a managed device policy question.