Embedded Files
We don't work on Chromebooks (yet), but most of our day-to-day job takes place in Chrome. Almost everything gets done through a web-based service, and the entire G Suite experience happens there, of course.
People on our team often say that Chrome is not a browser, but an operating system. I agree with that. Here are some tips to make you more proficient in that operating system!
I bet you have a colleague like this.
Tabs and windows are your friends.
Window management
Window management
Chrome makes it easy to work with tabs. Every tab can be its own window, or you can have multiple tabs inside the same window.
In the bad old days, this wasn't the case. You had dozens of Netscape windows sitting in the task bar, Many Windows programs (like MS Office) still work like that - in many cases, that is now a design decision.
Try grabbing a tab with your mouse. If you move it to the right and the left, you can re-order relative to other tabs. If you move it up or down, your tab comes free, ready to be its own window or to be moved into an existing Chrome window.
If you are working on two things at once, you can group windows this way.
If you need to focus, you can make your current tab its own window and "store" all other tabs in a window that you minimize.
Pinning tabs
Pinning tabs
Right-clicking a tab and selecting "Pin tab" will shrink the tab's title and move it over to the left. You can adjust the order of pinned tabs, and you can unpin them. Why would you do that?
It marks important tabs that you want to keep open at all times. People typically pin Gmail, Calendar and Chat (to not miss notifications). Some people keep Meet and Cloud Search open at all times - it's up to you! Just be careful with Netflix.
It takes up less space. Although I know people who have so many tabs open that the tabs get narrower than the pinned tabs. That's an entirely unrelated problem.
Hiding the tab's title reduces attention-grabbing and FOMO. Do you need to be reminded of the 873 emails in your inbox at all times?
Click here for a primer on tabs and how to configure Chrome to open them on startup. Like what you see and want to get started on pinning? Here are some ideas on what pinning is best used for.
I'm looking at you, Mark.
Bonus: Shortcuts
Bonus: Shortcuts
Shortcuts make your life easier and make you feel more in control. They also add a pleasant nerdiness to your day - perhaps you want to get started on your shortcuts journey with a few of these all-important Chrome shortcuts:
CTRL-T: Opens a new tab
CTRL-Shift-T: Re-opens the most recently closed tab. Mnemonic: "Shift" often reverts other shortcuts. This kind of inverts opening new tabs.
CTRL-W or CTRL-F4 (old school nerdery): closes the current tab. Easy to remember because ALT-F4 is Windows' shortcut to close any window.
CTRL-F: Finds text in the current page.
There are close to a hundred shortcuts for the browser alone - just get comfortable with a few and then expand as necessary.
Time to shift your browsing into higher gear and to have more fun at work! Thank you for reading!
Page updated
Report abuse