Thursday, March 28, 2024

Turn Chrome OS into a powerhouse with the best Chromebook apps

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Chromebooks have won a well-deserved reputation as affordable, lightweight laptops designed around streaming and collaboration. This makes them popular among budget-conscious individuals, even if it’s the apps and extensions that can really make Chrome OS worthwhile. The best Chromebook apps further the operating system’s functionality, allowing you to quickly save content for offline viewing and diagram the small intricacies that make up photosynthesis, among a slew of other actions. So why not amp up your laptop with a few of our favorites? Check them out below.

If you’re looking to outfit your new machine with even more apps, we’ve written a comprehensive guide on how to install Android apps on a Chromebook.

VLC for Chrome

Many of us love VLC, but did you know there is a version readily available for Chromebook users? The free media player can handle a variety of media formats — including MP4, AVI, FLAC, MOV, and AAC, among others — and offers multi-track audio, subtitles, auto rotation, support for 360-degree videos, and a number of other features that can greatly improve the quality of your viewing experience. Keep in mind, however, that Chromebooks aren’t designed to hold many movies, so don’t store those files on your internal hard drive if you can help it. After all, you’ll need space for some of these other apps!

Download now from: 

Chrome Web Store

Evernote/Evernote Web Clipper

Evernote is a versatile note-taking and content-saving app — if you know how to use it properly. The service allows you to save and share notes, lets you type up quick lists, allows you to save webpages or attach related images, and provides organization/search capabilities so you won’t lose what you were working on. Evernote also features excellent syncing capabilities, too, meaning you can easily save information when working on another device. If you don’t need a dedicated note taker, we suggest using the Evernote Web Clipper, which will allow you to save webpage information for future reference.

Download now from: 

Amazon Chrome Web Store

Office Online

Microsoft provides Office Online for those who want the basic Office suite — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Sway — in a simplified, web-based format. All your files will still be in the Office format, and you’ll be able to access all the familiar features you’ve grown accustomed to over the years. It won’t take up any room on your laptop, either, which a boon to Chromebook users already watching their storage space. This handy extension makes using the suite faster and more organic, rendering it ideal for students or workers who need to manage or create Windows-friendly when they aren’t on a Windows machine.

Download now from: 

Chrome Web Store

Polarr Photo Editor

If you frequently work or play with photos, you need a lightweight but capable photo-editing app. Thankfully, Polarr is happy to help. This robust editor includes both “basic” capabilities like face detection and skin-tone editing, as well as more advanced tools for adjusting gradients, editing spots, and managing layers. It also supports RAW formatting for exports (you probably don’t want to save a RAW file on your Chromebook). The list goes on, and Polarr incorporates additional tools with most updates, so check out the editor and see if it has what you’re looking for.

Download now from: 

Amazon Chrome Web Store

Enjoy Music Player

The Chrome Web Store has a ton of music players, but Enjoy stands out as one of the best, particularly when it comes to organizing and playing music both on a hard drive and in the cloud. Enjoy allows you to save music to either your computer or to Google Drive, and play it at will. The software’s minimalist layout includes a variety of categorization options, too, as well as an equalizer and mini mode. It’s rare to find a player so well tuned to the Google aesthetic and Chromebook use in particular.

Download now from: 

Chrome Web Store

Inbox by Gmail

You’re probably already well-acquainted with Gmail, but if you use it frequently for work-related purposes, you should probably install Inbox by Gmail. This app adds a bunch of organizational features to Gmail, including the ability to bundle messages together that all need similar responses, review highlights of messages without opening them, “snooze” emails that you want to put off for a while, and more. It’s one of the best Chromebook apps for a busy Gmail inbox, though if you use email clients other than Gmail, you may want to opt for Newton Mail instead.

Download now from: 

Chrome Web Store

Kami

Kami is a notation and markup tool that allows you to collaborate on a number of documents, notably PDFs and images. If you’re receiving PDFs or other docs from sources outside Google Drive and still need a way to mark and discuss them, Kami is your best bet. If your markup and collaboration needs are school-related, then you’ll be happy to know Kami also works with Google Classroom.

Download now from: 

Amazon Chrome Web Store

Save to Google Drive

If you have a Chromebook, you’ll often be using Google Drive to save documents and other forms of content. This extension is particularly powerful in that regard, because it allows you to save web content and screenshots instantly to Drive. You can save an entire webpage, or right-click to save specific hyperlinks or media — there are also options for customizing how the save feature functions. This is one of the best Chromebook apps for those who use Google Drive when researching or brainstorming.

Download now from: 

Chrome Web Store

SimpleUndoClose

Don’t let the weird name fool you, this app is simple but invaluable if you use a Chromebook. It adds a toolbar button that, when clicked, shows you all your recently-closed tabs and allows you to reopen any of them at will. It saves the day when you need to consult a recent website you’ve forgotten the name of, when you’ve accidentally closed a browser tab, and when Chrome crashes and you need to bring back your work. The settings menu allows you to customize how closed sites are shown and managed, too, so you can find the ideal layout for your work habits.

Download now from: 

Chrome Web Store

Paperpile

Ideal for the student or researcher, Paperpile allows you to save article references, PDFs, and published papers to Google Drive and auto-cite them in Google Docs. The app currently integrates with publishing platforms such as Google Scholar, PubMed, and ArXiv, among others. It basically takes the grunt work out of research papers, allowing you to get back to the content you’re writing ASAP.

Download now from: 

Chrome Web Store

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