When it comes to getting things done, Google Chrome can be your largest resource. The right web browser extensions can help you stay focused on your goals. This guide explores the best Google Chrome extensions for productivity.
1. Dark Reader
Price: Free
You’ll find several extensions for Chrome that invert bright colors to create better readability. Dark Reader is the only one that helps you create your own dark themes for individual websites.
Adjusting the brightness and contrast and applying sepia and grayscale filters will help you find the perfect settings for your eye comfort. Further, this extension allows you to customize the fonts of any website according to your individual taste.
2. Evernote Web Clipper
Price: Free with premium options
When browsing the Web, we often encounter interesting excerpts from articles, emails, and other sources that you want to save. Although you can bookmark entire tabs, what if you only need specific text, images, important emails, etc.?
This is where Evernote Web Clipper gives you a productivity edge. It allows you to capture and save screenshots of any webpage, article, or other element to a free Evernote account that you can upgrade. Additionally, you can organize your content using titles, highlights, photos, and URLs.
FYI: check out these funny Chrome extensions to prank your friends.
3. Google Translate
Price: Free
It can be quite frustrating if you want to read something on the Internet but can’t understand the language. Often, this becomes a productivity barrier to the millions of things you could discover on the Internet from different parts of the world. Enter Google Translate.
After installing, right-click the extension’s Options, and select your primary language. The Google Translate extension allows you to highlight specific text for translation, automatically converting it to a language of your choice. There is no limit, as you can translate entire pages.
4. Grammarly
Price: Free with premium options
This is one of the best Chrome extensions for productivity, especially articles, blogs, schoolwork, research, emails, or just a normal post on social media. Grammarly removes all those little unnoticeable mistakes that may sound correct but can cause embarrassment.
The extension checks for grammar, punctuation and spelling mistakes, and makes suggestions on tone, style, word choice, and tense, making your writing persuasive, clear, and free of mistakes. It also fixes the overall structure.
Good to know: check out some of the best Chrome extensions for Reddit.
5. Save to Pocket
Price: Free with premium options
The Internet has many nice materials, such as books, articles, videos, and movies. However, these materials could be a major distraction when you’re trying to focus on your work. Save to Pocket is tailored just for this.
This productivity extension for Chrome creates a customizable library for everything you want to watch on the Internet. While browsing, you can add interesting movies, videos, books, and more to the app. Later, you can review them at your leisure, even without an Internet connection.
6. Toggl Track
Price: Free with premium options
Toggl Track is a helpful extension for saving time. If you want to get more done during your workday, it’s like turning on a task management superpower. The Chrome extension works with over 120 tools, such as Trello, Asana, Jira, and Todoist. Once you install it, it automatically tracks your time without switching tabs.
If you follow the Pomodoro technique – where you focus on work while taking short breaks – Toggl Track will remind you. It also detects idle time to help with time management. This extension syncs with its iOS/Android apps, keeping everything in one place for you.
Tip: there are many Chrome extensions that automate boring browsing tasks.
7. Helperbird
Price: Free with premium options
When browsing any website, one of the biggest challenges is fully understanding the content. It becomes harder when you have to deal with tiny fonts, complex words (Wikipedia articles are often guilty of this – they use difficult jargon to explain simple ideas), or uncomfortable display settings. Helperbird will improve readability.
You can change font styles and text sizes in the Reading options. It also offers features like an immersive reader and tools to help with dyslexia. While there are AI-powered reading options to simplify or summarize complex text, these are only available with a Helperbird Pro subscription.
Good to know: check out some of the best Chrome extensions for students.
8. Wordtune
Price: Free with premium options
Whether you’re posting comments on the Internet – or writing anything online, really – there’s often a desire to improve beyond our initial attempt. Using generative AI, you can elevate your writing, thanks to Wordtune, a productive Chrome extension.
After you highlight a piece of text you’ve written, you’re provided with a Rewrite button. Clicking it gives you various ways to rephrase the original sentences. Choose the language style that suits your intended audience best.
Tip: don’t overdo AI suggestions in writing, or your prose will appear fake and AI-written, which has its own disadvantages.
9. Homey
Price: Free with premium options
Early Internet users will recall BonziBuddy, a freeware virtual assistant, that used to be delightful until it had to be abandoned for various reasons. There’s now Homey, a Chrome productivity extension that aims to recreate something similar by organizing your content from a new tab.
After you install Homey, it gives your desktop a cozy makeover, complete with quotes, wallpapers, and easy access to everything on one page. It’s a convenient spot for adding notes, bookmarks, doing Google searches, using ChatGPT, changing wallpapers, and accessing all your Google apps.
FYI: are you a frequent YouTube user? Then there are many YouTube extensions that will give you a better video viewing experience.
10. Block Site Ex
Price: Free
If you spend too much time on social media, YouTube, and the like, and want more control over them, give Block Site Ex a try. It lets you block unproductive sites by setting a PIN and a flexible schedule for when you want to avoid distractions.
Even if you unblock a site temporarily using a PIN, it will automatically block you again when the web page refreshes. If you’ve set a distraction-free schedule, you can gradually reduce your exposure to non-productive content.
Using the best Chrome extensions for productivity will help you stay focused, save time, and improve your browsing efficiency. Also check out our list of productive Chrome extensions that will help you use Google search better.
Image credit: Pixabay. All screenshots by Sayak Boral.
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