150+ Excellent Extensions for Chrome

Google Chrome is a powerful web browser filled with loads of useful features and tools. I covered many of these in my earlier series of posts and videos called "Google Chrome Can Do That?!"

However, as awesome as Chrome is, it may not do everything you need.

Thankfully Google allows you to make Chrome even better by installing Chrome web extensions. Extensions are tools from the Chrome Web Store that give extra features and abilities to Chrome. When you have them installed, you will find them as little icons in the top right corner of your browser.

In this blog post and webinar video we are going to take a deep dive into extensions including how to get extensions, how to manage your extensions, my resource with over 150 recommended extensions for you and your students, a selection of highlighted extensions, and more.

See below for the recorded webinar and all the resources for this session.

Google Chrome Can Do That?!

Google Chrome is the most popular web browser in the world. Chances are you use it, or have used it.

But are you getting the most out of it?

Chrome is loaded with lots of helpful features and tools that make your work easier, help you be more productive, and extend your abilities way beyond just browsing the web.

A while back a did a series of blog posts and videos on Google Chrome, where we explored lesser known features, tips, tricks, and helpful ideas for getting the most out of Chrome.

To make it simpler to access all of that content I have pulled everything together in one place. For each topic below you will find a short tutorial video, a basic overview, and a link to the original blog posts with even more details.

Over time I will continue to add new content here as Google Chrome continues to add features and improvements. Also, be sure to let me know your suggestions for tips that I should add. I would love to learn from you!

Excellent Extensions for Google Chrome

This post is Day 12 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

Google Chrome is a powerful web browser filled with loads of useful features and tools. Hopefully all of the other videos and blog posts in my series on Google Chrome have demonstrated this well.

However, as awesome as Chrome is, it may not do everything you need.

Thankfully Google allows you to make Chrome even better by installing Chrome web extensions. Extensions are tools from the Chrome Web Store that give extra features and abilities to Chrome. When you have them installed, you will find them as little icons in the top right corner of your browser.

In this blog post and video we are going to take a look at how to get extensions, how to manage your extensions, and my resource with over 150 recommended extensions for you and your students.

See below for a short tutorial video and written directions.

Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts in Chrome

This post is Day 11 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

Although I use a Bluetooth mouse any chance I get, there are times when I am mouse-less. I might be on the go, or on a plane, or just somewhere that doesn't have enough room for that helpful input device.

In such situations I have learned to take advantage of keyboard shortcuts, and thankfully Google Chrome has a large amount of shortcuts we can use.

Some of these have proven to be so helpful, that even when I do have my mouse, I have found it easier to just use a quick key combination to get something done.

In this video we are going to look at some of my favorite keyboard shortcuts for Google Chrome. I am sure there are several that I am going to miss, so please let me know what your favorite shortcuts are and how you use them.

Note: For my video and blog post I used my Windows computer. Anywhere that you see me mention using the Ctrl key, you can swap that out for the Command key if you are on a Mac.

Using History in Google Chrome

This post is Day 10 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

On average a person visits over 130 web pages per day. That comes close to 50,000 web pages per year.

So what do you do when you want to get back to one of those 50,000 web pages, but you don't have it bookmarked, and you can't quite remember the web address?

Well thankfully Google Chrome has you covered. As you are browsing the web, Google Chrome keeps track of every site you visit in your own personal history. This can help us in at least four different ways including:

• Reopening a web page you accidentally closed out of
• Searching for a web page by keyword
• Searching for a web page by date
• Opening a web page that you accessed on a different device

See below for a tutorial video and written directions on how to do each one of these.

Managing Multiple Accounts in Google Chrome

This post is Day 9 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

It is very common for people to have more than one Google account.

• You may have a personal Google account, such as a Gmail address.
• But you may also have a Google account provided by your school or your employer.
• And you may even have more accounts if you help run a club or organization.

So how do you manage your different accounts in Google Chrome?

There are several options for accessing multiple accounts in Chrome, and we are going to take a look at three of them. The first two options are ok, but the third option is my favorite, and is my personal recommendation.

See below for a tutorial video and written directions for each of these options.

Incognito Mode in Google Chrome

This post is Day 8 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

It is great that Google Chrome syncs with your account to keep track of all of your synced passwords and browsing history and installed extensions and more.

But sometimes you don't want it to.

Sometimes you want to be able to use Chrome without it being tied to your account. To be anonymous. To have a blank slate. To be incognito.

Thankfully Google Chrome provides you with just that with "Incognito Mode" which is useful in a lot of different situations. Let's take a look at how incognito mode works, and several reasons for why you would use it.

See below for a short tutorial video and written directions.

Reading List in Google Chrome

This post is Day 7 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

In some of my other posts in this series I talked about ways to manage your bookmarks in Chrome. Bookmarks are great for sites that you want to save permanently and access over and over again.

But what about sites that you might just need temporarily?

Many times when I am online I may come across an article that I want to read, or a website I want to explore, or a tool I want to test out, but I don't have the time right now to do so. I want to save the site for later, but I don't really want to add it as a bookmark.

What can I do?

Well thankfully Google Chrome has a helpful built-in tool called the "Reading List" that is perfect for this type of situation. Let's take a look at how this works.

See below for a short tutorial video and written directions.

Bookmark Folders in Google Chrome

This post is Day 6 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

In a previous post we looked at one trick for managing your bookmarks, which was using bookmark icons. That is a great way to save space on the bookmark bar for your most commonly visited sites.

However, that probably won't solve all of your issues if you have dozens or hundreds of bookmarks.

Another helpful tip is to use bookmark folders. Let's take a look at how to create bookmark folders, how to add favorites to the folders, and how to search through all your bookmarks.

See below for a short tutorial video and written directions.

Icons and Emojis for Bookmarks in Chrome

This post is Day 5 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

Bookmarks are an excellent way to provide quick access to your most used websites. And that would be great if you only had ten favorite sites. However if you are anything like me, your bookmark collection is in the dozens, or perhaps hundreds of links.

So how do you manage your bookmarks when they no longer fit on the bookmarks bar?

Thankfully there are lots of tips and tricks to wrangling your bookmarks. One trick is to use bookmark icons.

See below for a short tutorial video and written directions on how this works.

Live Captions in Google Chrome

This post is Day 4 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

Captions are a powerful tool for all learners.

• They can help beginning readers to connect the spoken word with the written word.
• They can help language learners who are still learning the language.
• They can help when you are in a noisy or distracting environment.
• And they can simply help you catch things you may have missed otherwise.

I personally use captions for everything I watch and they have helped me tremendously.

Thankfully most audio and video now has captions as an option.

• YouTube has auto-generated captions
• Google Slides has Live Captions when presenting
• Google Meet has a caption option any user can turn on.

But what if you come across something that doesn't provide captions? Well Google Chrome has you covered with built-in Live Captions.

See below for a short tutorial video and written directions on how this works.

Google Lens SUPER Image Search in Chrome

This post is Day 3 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

I am old enough to remember when the Internet was all text-based, so I am thrilled that it has been full of images for a long time now. As awesome as that is, online images can bring along some problems.

Some images may be deceptive, saying they are something different than they really are. This could come from Photoshopping the picture or simply claiming it represents something else.

Or some images could have text in them, but because it is a picture, the text can't be selected. This can be a challenge for a student who wants to have the text read aloud or translated into a different language.

Thankfully we have a tool built right into the Chrome web browser to help with all of these problems. That tool is Google Lens.

See below for a short tutorial video and written directions on how this works.

Making QR Codes with Chrome

This post is Day 2 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

A QR Code (or "Quick Response" code) is a popular way to give someone a web link. By now we have probably all used our phones to scan one and pull up the menu in a restaurant.

However they are also useful in a school setting. Students can scan a QR Code with their phones or Chromebooks to quickly access a web link, whether it be to an online article or instructional slideshow or activity document or useful website.

Thankfully there are a lot of good options for creating QR Codes, but one of the easiest is built right into the Chrome browser.

See below for a short tutorial video and written directions on how to create QR Codes right in your Chrome web browser.

Pinning Tabs in Chrome

This post is Day 1 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" series where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

Two common issues with tabs in Google Chrome are:

• Having the tabs take up too much room when you have a lot of them open and
• Accidentally closing out of a tab that you meant to keep open

There are certainly several options for addressing these issues, but one simple approach is to pin a tab. Pinning a tab makes the tab much smaller, and it makes it impossible to close the tab if you do not mean to.

See below for a short tutorial video and written directions on how this works.

The 12 Days of Chrome-mas 2022

With the holiday season here, I am excited to share some of my favorite tips and tricks for the Chrome web browser!

I will be doing this in a series of blog posts throughout the month of December that I am calling "The 12 Days of Chrome-Mas".

Each blog post will provide a tip or trick or lesser known feature or helpful idea related to Google's Chrome web browser.

See below for options on how to access each entry for "The 12 Days of Chrome-Mas".

7 Helpful Hacks for Google Tools

On the 7th day of Tech-Mas my true love gave to me… 7 Helpful Hacks.

Note: This post is part of my "12 Days of Tech-Mas" series for 2017. You can see all of the posts for each day as they get released in the main post here: "12 Days of Tech-Mas 2017".

Google tools have so many awesome features, options, and settings, that it is easy to miss some of the cool things their products can do for you. In this blog post we are going to take a look at seven helpful hacks to get more out of your Google experience.

The criteria I used for coming up with this list of tips and tricks include:

• These are built-in features in the Google tools, rather than something that needs to be installed separately such as extensions or add-ons.
• These should provide some benefit to you such as saving time, improving organization, avoiding problems, or making you more efficient.
• These tips should be lesser known features of common Google tools.

Certainly you may be familiar with some of these tips, but hopefully you will learn a few new tricks, or at least be reminded and encouraged to use some of these options. As always, I would love to hear your favorite lesser known Google tips. Please share your ideas in the comments at the bottom of the post.

Managing Multiple Google Accounts in Chrome

It is becoming more and more common for someone to have multiple Google accounts.

• You have your personal Gmail account. 
• Then you have your school Google Apps for Education account. 
• Then you also have that Google account for the club/sport/organization you help run.

As a Google Education Trainer, I have lost count of how many accounts I have. Typically I have one, if not two, accounts for every school I work with, as well as dozens of accounts on the domains I run.

So the question is, how do you manage multiple Google accounts?

To make matters worse, there are actually several different options for handling multiple accounts in Chrome. Some are better suited for specific situations, while some are just better in general. How do you know which to use?

See below for options to manage your many Google accounts, when to use which method, and detailed directions on how do each.