Chrome tips
Add different profiles like personal, office, wife, or guest browser
Multiple profiles let you have Chrome for different tasks or other people (kids, wife, siblings, etc.). For example, during this ‘work from home’ time, you may be using a single Mac for both office and personal use. It is best to keep things organized. All these profiles have separate bookmarks, history, saved passwords, settings, etc. Here’s how to do it:
- Click your profile picture at the top-right of Chrome.
- Click + Add.
- Finish the simple process by giving it a name, profile picture, background, etc. It would be best if you sign in as well.
- To use a different profile, click People at the top Menu Bar.
Use Chrome’s Task Manager
The browser’s Task Manager lets you view which Chrome tabs, extensions, and processes are utilizing how much resources. From here, you can also end the process if something is consuming resources extensively and slowing down your Mac.
- To see the Chrome Task Manager, click on Window from the top Menu Bar and choose Task Manager.
- Next, select an option and click End Process, if required.
Reopen recently closed tab
Accidentally closed a tab? Fret not. Click History in the top menu bar, and you will see your recently closed tabs. You may also press command + shift + T.
Need a text editor? Use Chrome for it
I used to love editpad.org. But recently it started showing numerous ads. Thus, I discovered a handy inbuilt trick in Chrome that lets you use it as a simple text editor. For this, type or copy-paste this address data:text/html, <html contenteditable> in the Chrome URL box, and you have a handy text editor. Brilliant, right!
Use Groups in Chrome
The newly introduced ‘Group’ feature in Chrome is fantastic for organizing tabs. It lets you have one or several open tabs in neat groups. This declutters your top Chrome bar and keeps all tabs explicitly bundled to a topic (or as you desire). For example, when I was writing this article, I had several Google Support pages open in different tabs. I added them to the Tips group. Now, it is clean and organized. I can see all those tabs after expanding the group in a click.
Make Chrome your default Mac browser
If you love using Chrome, let us start by making it the default Mac browser instead of the inbuilt Safari. For this, click the Apple logo at the top-left and choose System Preferences. Now, click General → Default web browser and select Google Chrome.
Take advantages of Chrome Offers
With the Chromebook, Google is also throwing some offers for you. Which you can access those offers by Going into this link: – Chromebook Perks Open this link from the Chromebook so that Google can verify that you are using Chromebook and provide you a promo code that you need to paste in the Redeem option in the Play Store and can use that Offers.
Stop access to create an account from the lock screen
Chrome OS gives us an option to create an account from the lock screen itself. With that, anyone can open your Chromebook and can create an account in it. Though they cannot access your files, they can use your entire Chromebook with their google account or by using Guest Account. In case, you don’t want that, you can turn off that by going into system settings and in the ‘people’ section, select ‘manage other people’ and turn on ‘restrict sign-in to the following users’. You can select some users whom you want to use your Chromebook if you want. And turn off Guest browsing. So no one can access your Chromebook without logging-in.
Quickly change the Audio Output and Input
Chromebooks have an option to easily change the Audio Output / Input by opening the quick setting panel and selecting the option beside the audio controls. It will show all the options including Bluetooth. You can seamlessly switch between audio devices without connecting and disconnecting every time. This option will only available if you have connected any devices to it. Similarly, you can change the input too.
Add Dropbox or One Drive in the File Manager
By default, along with native files, you all get Google Drive option in the file manager, but you cannot find any other services. But we can install them easily by opening the three-dot menu on the Files app and click on ‘add new service’ and then ‘install new service’. And we can download services like Dropbox, One Drive, etc from here easily to your file manager. As an added bonus, you can even change the download location to them and save space on the system memory.
