Salesforce1, the new mobile app released by Salesforce at Dreamforce ’13, allows for rapid development of mobile apps, making it simple to add functionality to the mobile platform.
Salesforce1 is currently available in the iTunes Store (requires iOS6+) and Google Play Store (requires Android 4.2+). To speed up development, it is relatively simple to work with the Salesforce1 app directly on your desktop using Google Chrome. Here is how it’s done:
1) Allow Salesforce1 Access on Desktop
When logged into Salesforce, ensure Salesforce1 is set up to run as a mobile browser app. This is done through Administer > Mobile Administration > Salesforce1. If the Enable the Salesforce1 mobile browser app option is not already selected, select it and Save.
Next you will want to make sure that your user is set up to allow accessing Salesforce1. Each user has a Salesforce1 User option. Ensure this is checked.
2) Navigate to App
You should now be able to navigate directly to the Salesforce1 app in your browser. To do that, all you need to do is add /one/one.app to the end of your URL of the domain your Salesforce instance is on. So, in my case, my Developer Edition is located on na15, meaning when I log in my URL looks something like https://na15.salesforce.com/home/home.jsp. To navigate to the Salesforce1 app, change the /home/home.jsp to /one/one.app. When I navigate to https://na15.salesforce.com/one/one.app, I get:
3) Change User Agent and Dimensions
As you can tell from the above picture, this doesn’t look correct. You need to manipulate your browser to make it look like a mobile device. One way to do that is to simply just make your browser much smaller. With the responsive design that Salesforce1 uses, this is a valid option. However, this really isn’t ideal as it doesn’t truly simulate what the app would look like on the mobile device (the user agent is different and the dimensions will change based on your browser size). You can do this by utilizing a great feature of Google Chrome.
The first thing you need to do is open up the Developer Tools. The easiest way to do that is to just right-click anywhere on the page and select Inspect Element
This will open up your Developer Tools at either the bottom of the browser or in a different window (depending on the settings you have set up).
In the bottom right hand corner, you will see a small gear 
that will open up additional options.
You can then select Overrides.
You can now easily Enable the overrides and then specify a User Agent (which should default to the correct dimensions for that device – With that said, you will probably have to change these because the dimensions on the device are for retina displays which will not view properly on a browser).
Once you have this set, your browser should properly display the application. One thing to remember is that you have to keep the Developer Tools open in order to maintain these settings. If you close the Developer Tools, the browser will revert back to the standard Google Chrome.
Note: If you use Google Chrome Canary (bleeding edge version of Chrome w/ absolute latest features), you would be much better off using the new mobile emulation feature. This feature will eventually replace the above setup as well once it is released as part of the standard Google Chrome build.
So there you have it, Salesforce1 in your browser speeding up development and allowing easy access to your application. Now get out there and build some cool apps!
Thanks for sharing this, it hadn’t crossed my mind to hunt down this URL in lieu of having to test development changes on a mobile device. Big time saver!
Belated thank you for this Jesse – this override function just saved me having to build a powerpoint with screen captures on the iPhone. Awesome!!!
Awesome article Jesse! Salesforce1 also has an admin app at http://theinstance.salesforce.com/one/admin.app.
Hi,
I would like to understand how I can build a site which my customers can access on any device, e.g. desktop, tablet, mobile. For our company website we are using ‘mobile first’ responsive website design to achieve this. With Salesforce1 it looks like I have to offer one URL for my site, for mobile device users, and a different URL for desktop devices. Is this correct, or is it possible to make a Salesforce1 app work on all devices via responsive techniques such as ‘media queries’ ?
Thanks
Tim
The mobile emulation feature is now part of standard Google Chrome!
A great help for Salesforce admins – I write a lot of guides for my SFDC users and this is a terrific way to make video tutorials for SF1… no more iPhone screenshots! Thanks for posting this!!!
A couple questions–
Does SF officially support changing the URL in the browser to one/one.app?
I’ve used it for testing but found it doesn’t work at all in Firefox so I used Chrome. I’ve heard that browser recommended but again don’t know if any are officially supported.
From what I understand the SF1 application itself is basically a wrapper around the one/one.app HTML5 interface to SF. It is written using some tools (like phonegap) to allow SF to get access to some of the phone’s capabilities. When testing via a desk-top browser, would think that this capabilities would not be available. Do you know if/what features are in SF1 app itself but not available when using the one/one.app URL from a browser?
The one/one.app is officially supported through the browser, however it is built with different screen sizes/functionality in mind. It also does things a bit differently than the actual Salesforce1 application. While, from what I understand, Salesforce1 is a wrapper of the one/one.app page, there is functionality that is not available, as you have noted. I don’t have a complete list, but basically anything that requires a camera, contact list, phone functionality, etc all won’t work properly.
As far as it not working on Firefox, I haven’t really tested it there. I have only used Chrome.
Very helpful, thanks for pulling this together.
Hey Jesse,
You may wish to update this page to include the new Chrome directions.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22509865/no-overrides-page-in-chrome-dev-tools-settings
The Overrides page no longer exists 🙂
Thanks! Great post!
Hi, This is what I am getting when I am typing (/one/one.app) in the URL from my computer:
You can’t access Lightning Experience
The page you’re trying to access is available from the Salesforce1 mobile app only. Please try again from a supported mobile device. Need help? Ask your Salesforce admin.
However, a few days back I was able to open the Mobile version (/one/one.app) on my computer browner (that saved a lot of time), but now I cannot open it. Is there something I am missing or may have changed?
Angshumit – yes with the release of Winter 16 in Salesforce the /one/one.app no longer emulates the mobile experience but used for Lighting development. The official release notes say to use a emulator to simulate what SF1 looks like. our mobile device are all ipads or iphones – but our laptops are all Windows – currently there is no “official” emulator for iOS from Apple that works on the Windows machine.
This link helps me http://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewSolution?id=000204818&language=en_US
i am new to salesforce to start with. I am an apple user by nature but my desktop is a PC and I can navigate Salesforce on my desktop with no problem. I have it on my apple phone but I can’t do a lot on it. My manager is willing to get me an iPad for convenience for traveling but I want to ensure that I can everything on my iPad that I could on my desktop (i.e. quotes, tasks, notes, create contacts, change selling stages, etc.). Is this true? If so, how difficult is it to download and customize? I’m a remote worker and my organization doesn’t support Apple so I’m just curious.
Thanks for any help you provide. I greatly appreciate it.
Hi Jesse,
The /one/one.app url is not leading to the mobile version in the browser instead taking to the lighting version of salesforce. Is there a way to access the mobile on browser ? This would be very helpful to share the mobile screens during demo
Thanks
Dear Sirs,
I was wondering whether I can download the application to my organisation´s PC and work from there, or while at home, and then go back to my mobile when I’m out.
Should it be possible, where in your webpage may I go to get the applicable directions?
Cheers!
Salvador