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Google Chrome is one of the most popular browsers in the world, and yet, because we use it so often, we often forget what it can do.

Chrome will let you browse pages, obviously, but it's also loaded with hidden hacks that can essentially streamline your internet-browsing experience and digital life. From simple tricks that allow you to send emails from the omnibar (the Chrome name for the address bar, but it does so much) to extensions that you let save images to Pinterest without ever having to go to Pinterest.com, Chrome has everything you could possibly need or want.

For instance, there are stacks of tips and tricks we use on a regular basis to get the most out of Chrome, whether we're on our desktop PC, Mac, Android, or iOS. Here are the best.

Sign in to Google Chrome

This might sound super obvious, but you really should sign in to the Chrome browser on desktop and iOS before you even think about using it. Doing so will allow you to save and sync things like your bookmarks, history, passwords, and other settings to your Google account. Then, you can access them on any device. You can learn more about how to sign in to Chrome on this FAQ page. If you're on Android, Chrome will associate your browsing information with the Google account you've logged into your device with.

Add different Chrome profiles

If you have different Google accounts, like work and personal, you can use profiles to keep your bookmarks and settings separate. You can learn more about how to add a Chrome profile on this FAQ page.

Incognito browsing or delete your history

If you don’t want Chrome to save what you visit or download, you can always browse the web privately using Chrome's Incognito mode. You can also delete your history, cookies, and other information - all at once or just some from a specific period of time. Go here to learn more about Incognito mode or learn about how to delete your history in Chrome.

Access Chrome's settings

From Chrome, select the three-dot icon (⋮) on the top-right corner, then scroll to the end of the drop-down menu and select Settings to access Chrome's full list of settings. Better yet, just enter chrome://settings/ in your omnibar.

Chrome keyboard commands and shortcuts

There are lots of Chrome keyboard commands for desktop, but here are some worth remembering:

  • Ctrl/Command + T opens a new tab
  • Ctrl/Command + W closes your current tab
  • Ctrl/Command + Shift + T opens your last tab
  • Ctrl/Command + L highlights whatever’s in the omnibar
  • Ctrl/Command + Tab moves you a tab to the right
  • Ctrl/Command + Shift + Tab moves you a tab to the left

Add a “guest browser” account

If you want to let your partner or a guest use your laptop but still keep all your browsing info private from them, go to Chrome's settings, and then under People, select either Guest or, if they want to use their Chrome settings by logging into their Google account, Add a person. This will let them have their own browsing experience separate from yours.

Manager performance

You can check on Chrome’s Task Manager on desktop to see how much memory each tab is consuming and tackle any performance issues. Go to Chrome's three-dot menu on the left and then select More Tools. From there, click Task Manager. From that same More Tools menu, you can also select Performance to be taken to a toggle for Memory Saver. With it on, Chrome will more aggressively turn off any memory-intensive operations that you aren't focused on.

Manage Autofill settings

Use your autofill settings to skip the tedium of having to enter your address or password or credit card information over and over again. Just go to Chrome settings, then “Show advanced settings…” >, and find “Manage Autofill settings” under “Passwords and forms.” On Android and iOS, you will find autofill settings in your system settings.

Search sites from the omnibar

Ever want to search YouTube without going to YouTube.com? Desktop Chrome users can set up custom search engines just for those sites. Visiting Chrome's settings, select the Search engine tab down the left side, then Manage search engines and site search. You'll see a list of sites you can search directly from the omnibar. Chrome will add these automatically, but you can also enter the URL for a site, such as Wikipedia. So, when you type a phrase in the omnibar and then hit tab, you'll go to whatever related Wiki article or YouTube video you wanted to find. This saves you an extra step, as you no longer have to go to a site’s homepage to find what you want.

For all Chrome users, you can also look up a topic that a particular site has covered by typing site:websitename.com followed by a query. So long as Google has the pages indexed into its engine, all the results will come from this site.

Search your personal Gmail from omnibar

Go back to the “Manage search engines…” area, then scroll to the bottom to add a new search engine, and enter the following: https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#apps/%s. This is Gmail’s search function. You can then make the keyword shortcut “gmail.com,” “gmail,” or even "schnorpleshnaff," and from that point on, you can search your email.

Do sums or equations from the omnibar

You can use the omnibar as a calculator on any device. Enter 10 × 10 and it will tell you in an instant result that the product is 100. Try it out. It works with most basic math problems, too. It can also give instant results for unit and currency conversions.

Define or translate a word with the omnibar

Putting the word "define" in the omnibar followed by a word you're not familiar with will generate an instant result with a definition - this works better on mobile, but it's certainly workable on desktop. This is also an easy way to use Google Translate directly from your favourite browser.

Pin a Google Chrome tab

When you create new tabs on desktop, they will always spawn to the right of the other tabs. That said, sometimes you'll be moving things around or opening old tabs up - that means they open in the same relative position from when they were closed. With that in mind, the Chrome browser offers the ability to lock some of your most-used tabs to the left of your browser and reduces the tabs to icon size so that you can squeeze many of your favourites in a small space. All you have to do is to right-click on a tab and select the Pin Tab option from the menu.

Mute tabs

Autoplaying advertisements are pretty bad as they are already, but they can be especially nasty when they begin playing from a tab that you've clicked away from. Fortunately, Chrome makes it easy to know which tab's playing sound by showing a speaker icon when it does. Right-click on the tab and select Mute site to keep it quiet. On Android and iOS, a notification will appear noting that a Chrome tab is playing audio and you can manage it from that prompt.

View what you're allowing on certain pages

Ever want to see how many cookies a page is deploying or what permissions you’ve given it? Whether you're on desktop or mobile, just click or tap the padlock icon next to the URL in the omnibar to view site info including connection security, cookies and permissions, and when you last visited the site. It’s also a handy way to allow the page to show popups.

Use the “Bookmark Open Pages…” option

If you want to save your current desktop browsing session for future reference, right-click, then select Bookmarks from the Settings menu and click Bookmark All Tabs - you can achieve the same effect by pressing Ctrl/Command + Shift + D. You can then save all your open pages in a new folder. This is handy if you’re researching a subject and want to save all the helpful information you’ve already found. You can also download an extension like OneTab to do the same thing.

Reopen your recently closed tabs

If you exit your window, you can pick up where you left off by opening the three-dot menu and scrolling to the History sub-menu. Look for the tabs under Recently Closed, and click on the page once you find it. There's also a dedicated section in Chrome's settings for managing your browsing history. You can also go into settings and select “Continue where you left off” under the “On startup” section to make sure your favourite sites open up when you launch Chrome for the first.

A quick and easy way to open up tabs that you've just closed is to press Ctrl/Command + Shift + T. You can keep pressing this key combo to re-open previously closed tabs in the order which you have closed them.

Save and edit bookmarks

Type Ctrl/Command + D to add a bookmark. You can also always right-click on a page in the bookmarks bar to edit their titles. You can even go to Bookmarks > Bookmarks Manager from the Menu bar to manage all your saved sites and folders.

Quickly switch between Google Chrome tabs

Hit Ctrl/Command + 1-9 while you're on the omnibar to quickly switch between tabs. Each number corresponds to a page's place in the tab bar above. So, on a Mac, Command + 3 will open your third tab.

Quickly close tabs

Simply right-click on a tab and then select Close Other Tabs or Close Tabs to the Right to get rid of them fast.

Set startup pages

If you want Facebook or some other page to appear as soon as you open Chrome, you can set it to automatically launch those pages. Just go to settings, select Open a specific page or set of pages followed by Set pages, and then enter the sites you wish to visit when you boot up your computer and launch Chrome.

Use Chrome as a text editor

Instead of using some random note editor on your machine to take notes, use Chrome. Just put in data:text/html, <html contenteditable> into the omnibar, and then you can jot something down real quick. After you've written your note, press Enter and all that text appears on the page.

Use Chrome as a simple multimedia player or file viewer

Click on any multimedia file on your computer - it could be almost anything, like a video or PDF and then drag it directly into your Chrome browser window to look at it.

Download files to desktop

To quickly access a file you downloaded, automatically download it to your desktop. To change where files automatically download, go to settings, then click the Advanced Settings link, and select Downloads. There you can alter where your downloaded files will reside on your computer.

Zoom in or out

On desktop, you can zoom in or out on a page by pressing Ctrl/Command + Plus (+) or Minus (-). You can also use your mouse's scroll wheel while pressing Ctrl/Command. Press Ctrl/Command + 0 will return you to the default zoom.

Go up or down using key commands

You can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll anywhere on a page. Pressing Space lets you jog down the page a bit faster. Shift + Space does the same going back up.

Translate everything

Chrome has Google Translate built-in, handy for whenever you need to translate a small passage or the entire page.

On desktop, highlight some text, then right-click on it and select Translate selection to language. This pops up a window near the omnibar with a translation of that passage. There are options to switch languages or translate the entire page - you'll see the entire contents of the page translated in-place. You can also translate the entire page immediately by hitting the three-dot icon and selecting Google Translate.

On mobile, highlight text, select the three-dot icon in the pop-up menu, and then hit Translate or Google Translate. This will also pop up a window on-screen with the translated passage. On Android only, tapping the three-dot icon and selecting Translate... lets you translate the whole page.

Cast your screen

Google Cast is a widely-adopted protocol that allows you to mirror your current screen on one display onto another display. Cast is baked into Chrome for desktop: just right-click anywhere in Chrome to prompt a pop-up Cast window. Or, click the hamburger in the top-right to prompt a pull-down menu and then choose Cast. For more information about using Cast on mobile devices, you can head here to learn more about casting from Chrome to your TV.

Use a Chrome theme

Sick of how Chrome looks? Download a theme from the Chrome store. Just click over to the Theme section and click to install.

Compose an email in your omnibar

You can write your email up in the omnibar on Chrome and send it from there. Just type “mailto:” followed by the recipient's address into your omnibar. It’ll open up the Gmail compose window automatically. From there, you can write your email and hit send.

Create desktop shortcuts

You can turn any site into a desktop app to speedily access it. Just navigate to the website, then click the wrench icon, and select “Tools”. From there, click on “Create application shortcuts.”

Explore Chrome extensions

To get the most out of Chrome, go to the Chrome Web Store and explore its vast amounts of extensions and apps. The right extensions will improve your web experience. For instance, you can install Pinterest one so you can directly pin any image you see to your account.

Do a barrel roll

Type "Do A Barrel Roll" into the omnibar and hit enter. :)