An apparatus and method for executing an application may execute a text string selected by a user or an application associated with a type of text string to input the text string to increase the user's convenience. The apparatus of executing an application includes a text string recognizer to determine a text string, a determiner to determine one or more candidate applications related to the text string, and an input location of the selected text string based on a type of the selected text string and the association model, an application list provider to generate and display a list of the candidate applications, and an application executer to execute a candidate application selected from the list and to input the selected text string into the input location of the candidate application.