Google’s Chrome browser is one of the most popular in internet browsers—over one billion users. What makes Chrome the even bigger superpower of browsers is its Chrome extensions to personalize your experience with the internet. The problem? With thousands of extensions in the Chrome Extension Store, it makes it very hard to determine the best apps to boost your productivity.
The following list is by no means the only extensions that could enhance your work life, but believe me, it will lead you down a glorious rabbit hole of extension searching.
1. Todoist for Gmail
Have you ever opened an email and thought, “I wish I could come back to this email later today, or tomorrow”? Todoist for Gmail allows you to do just that. This Chrome Extension gives you the ability to tag emails into a to-do list format and link directly to that email in your inbox.
Todoist, originally a desktop app for task management and organization, changed the game with their integration with Gmail. The extension can help you get through your emails while saving key messages as tasks. You can select your task view, prioritize tasks, and sync everything across your devices.
If you practice the “Inbox Zero” lifestyle, this extension is a must.
2. Grammarly
As a public relations major, I like to believe that I am an expert in the grammar world, but Grammarly gave me a sharp reality check. If you spend your days writing emails, social posts or virtually anything else online—Grammerly is a great work productivity hack.
Grammarly will underline misspelled words or phrases with incorrect punctuation and gives recommendations for corrections. While the free version of the extension doesn’t catch everything, it does a good job of flagging obvious grammatical errors and misspellings.
To add to the benefits, Grammarly can serve as a dictionary and thesaurus by clicking on the icon in your Chrome header navigation. The tool also offers a pretty straightforward tutorial to further assist you with integrating the tool into your work life.
3. Boomerang
Boomerang helps you write better emails. Dubbing itself as the “ultimate email productivity tool”, this Chrome extension includes some great features. The extension allows you to schedule emails to be sent later, track responses, and even use AI to write emails.
The biggest plus? When you need to focus, you can hit the “snooze” button to pause incoming emails from cluttering your inbox and stealing your focus.
4. LastPass
LastPass is an online password manager to reduce the headache of managing multiple user accounts and passwords, making your browsing experience easier and more secure. If you work in an organization that has a different login for every platform, this extension allows you to stray away from the giant spreadsheet of passwords you inevitably have to skim multiple times per day.
LastPass will also create a different password for every site, storing it locally in an encrypted vault, and automatically filling web forms and logins as required. The best part is that all you have to do is remember a “master password.”
Unlike some password managers, there’s no need to add all your usernames and passwords to a database before you can use it, the autofill feature makes logging into accounts seamless.
Do you have a Chrome extension that had changed your work life? Let me know in the comments!
Anna Crabill 