Techniques are disclosed herein for file sharing using remote applications. One embodiment provides a computer-implemented method that includes receiving, at a computing device, a selection of a reference for accessing the file, where the reference includes a first identifier specifying the file stored on a host server remotely located with respect to the computing device and a second identifier specifying an application that is running on the host server and that is configured to open files of a same type as the file. The method further includes establishing a remote connection to the application specified by the second identifier, by connecting to the host server and causing the application to be launched on the host server. In addition, the method includes causing the application to open the file specified by the first identifier and the user interface of the application to be remoted to the computing device.