The 32 Best Chrome Extensions For Maximizing Your Productivity

In the year 2020, web users (so, pretty much everyone) have many browser options to choose from. There’s Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer — the list continues on, but the browser best-designed for professional use just might be Google Chrome. 

Chrome’s interface lends itself well to busy workflows, and if you’re looking to streamline even further and boost your productivity, then you can make use of the thousands of downloadable extensions available for Chrome. The following 32 extensions prove especially useful for project management, email wrangling, content sourcing, SEO and social media. Check them out below:

For project and time management:

1. ClickUp

ClickUp describes itself as “a productivity platform that makes your personal and work lives more productive, saving you time.” The extension accomplishes this goal by organizing your task lists, attaching emails to tasks as needed, capturing and editing screenshots, saving websites as tasks, and giving you the ability to attach timers to each task to track your progress. 

2. Forest

If you find yourself easily distracted at work and regularly lose track of the time, Forest can steer you back on course by setting up a digital “forest” on your computer screen and planting a new tree every 30 minutes. However, if you start perusing the sites on your Blacklist (i.e. the sites that most divert you from your tasks at hand), your tree will wither and die. The clear and appealing visuals of this extension give you tangible evidence of your productivity, simplifying the pursuit of workplace focus. 

3. Toggl

To truly gain a full picture of your time maintenance throughout the workday, download the Toggl extension. This software meticulously tracks your time spent on websites and tasks and can even be programmed to help you follow productivity regimens like the Pomodoro Technique.

4. StayFocusd

StayFocusd takes a hard-line approach to limiting your time spent on non-work-related online activities. You upload a list of the sites that drain your time the most, and StayFocusd monitors the minutes spent at these online locations. If you exceed your allotted time for the day, StayFocusd will block the site entirely until EOD. 

5. Todoist

Organizational platform Todoist uses a clear and intuitive interface to arrange your to-do lists. You can create tasks, arrange them by date and priority, delegate them to colleagues, and use software metrics to chart your progress. 

6. Harvest

If you’re looking for a productivity-promoting extension that integrates seamlessly with a wide range of other work-related software programs, then you’ll absolutely want to download Harvest. This digital organizer tracks time and expenses for both yourself and your work team, keeps tabs on tasks and projects, and can even be used for invoicing and payment scheduling. 

7. LastPass

We’ve all been there: We’re ready to start a work project, only to realize that we can’t remember the password to the portal or CMS or platform we need to access to get our work done. LastPass can solve this problem by securely storing valuable data like passwords, usernames, addresses and credit card info. 

8. Asana

If you’re a manager or team leader, then you’re likely already familiar with Asana, the mega-popular platform that allows you to assign tasks to colleagues, provide updates and deadlines and upload drafts and other content. Chrome users will be glad to know that Asana has an extension for Google’s browser, providing seamless integration and the ability to directly save websites as Asana tasks.

For Emails:

9. Mailtrack

Tired of sending emails, only to constantly wonder whether they’re being read? If you’re a Gmail user, you can download Mailtrack, which will let you know when your emails have been opened, send you read receipts and provide daily tracking reports, which prove especially useful when you’re sending mass emails to clients.

10. Hunter

Searching for an email address that isn’t readily available — like the ones attached to web proprietors for sites that interest you — can be a massively frustrating professional (and personal) undertaking. Luckily, the Hunter extension is devoted to seeking out those contacts and saving them in an easy-to-access location for whenever you’re ready to use them.

11. Hiver

In some office environments, teams need to utilize a group inbox, often attached to an address like info@ or support@. In these circumstances, it can be challenging to keep track of  who’s checking which messages, who’s responding to what, and who should handle which tasks. Hiver simplifies this process by assigning team-member “owners” to each incoming message, making it easy for managers to parcel out tasks, and generally smoothing out wrinkles in the collaboration experience.

12. Drag

Managers regularly need to comb through their inboxes to find information and instructions to pass along to their employees, and Drag offers a one-stop shop for these pursuits. According to the Chrome extension description, “Drag turns your inbox into a Help Desk, CRM, marketing platform, Project Management Tool and a lot more things.” The extension integrates with Gmail and allows managers to sort their messages and delegate assignments smoothly and efficiently.

13. Contacts+

If you send large-scale mass emails on a frequent basis, you’re likely not always fully aware of who exactly is on each mailing list, which can make your contact lists pretty anarchic. With Contacts+, you can save full profiles about your professional contacts, gathering everything from addresses to photos to job titles and making this info readily available in your inbox. 

14. Boomerang

A hugely successful email productivity tool, Boomerang is most famous for its scheduling feature, which gives users the opportunity to set later send times for composed messages and to track email receipt. Chrome’s Boomerang extension merges Boomerang’s functionality with Gmail’s, providing you with a highly-flexible and functional inbox.

15. Inbox When Ready

When you’re fully immersed in your workflow, it can feel unpleasantly distracting to receive constant “New Message” notifications from your inbox. That’s where Inbox When Ready comes in handy; this extension will help you set your inbox-checking daily “budget” and batch your messages, only notifying you of new emails at designated points throughout the day.

16. Yesware

A software platform specifically devised for sales professionals, Yesware offers a Gmail-compatible Chrome extension that tracks your emails, provides useful email templates, personalizes email campaigns to appeal to your clientele, and allows you to schedule email send times.

For content sourcing:

17. Pocket

To easily save websites, images, text blocks and other valuable forms of content, download the Pocket extension. This feature gathers your saved materials and displays them in a convenient and intuitive format, making it easy to browse and select the information you need.

18. Zest

An extension powered by marketing data, Zest “makes sure you’re only receiving high-quality marketing content and kills the information overload that’s wasting your time.” Users of the Chrome extension can browse Zest’s library of over 60,000 articles, audio/video clips, and other forms of media, notating and saving the most relevant pieces. 

19. Evernote Web Clipper

This extension lets you save interesting sites you come across while web browsing and keep the links all in one place. Then, you can go into the webpage you selected and highlight texts, take screenshots and keep it all on Evernote, so you can access it wherever you have Chrome downloaded.

20. GIPHY

GIFs are a crucial aspect of the digital universe, and the Giphy extension permits users to quickly find GIFs in GIPHY’s extensive library and drop them into Chrome tabs as needed. 

21. Start.me

Content sourcing often takes significant time to accomplish, but Start.me can speed things along by consolidating your frequently-visited websites into a single dashboard, giving you access to info and visuals without extensive, time-consuming browsing. 

22. AddThis

For speedy link-sharing on social media platforms, get the AddThis Chrome extension. This plug-in makes it easier than ever to spread the word about cool content, and the sleek menu is highly customizable, so you can keep your most interesting discoveries right at the top.

For SEO:

23. MozBar

The industry leader for SEO toolbars, the Chrome extension known as MozBar provides immediate metrics, allows you to operate custom searches, helps you sort through and categorize your links, and much more. 

24. Keywords Everywhere

Keywords are an integral aspect of SEO, so an extension like Keywords Everywhere, which offers metrics like monthly search volume, cost per click and advertiser counts for your chosen keywords, can massively assist digital marketers.

25. Impactana

The Impactana extension is a comprehensive content-marketing platform that gives you the tools to track social media impact like views, likes, and comments related to your content and to generally gain a realistic view of your content’s impact. 

26. NoFollow

“Nofollow” links do nothing to boost your SEO performance, and this extension can help you identify those links and make the changes required to boost your search rankings once again. 

27. SEO Peek

Ideal for SEO newbies, SEO Peek provides a clear, easy-to-follow perspective on the SEO factors of any website you visit, imparting useful insight to carry through into your own SEO pursuits.

For blogging and social media:

28. Buffer

Smash-hit social media extension Buffer lets you directly post articles and other web content to Facebook or Twitter or to queue the posts and schedule them for a later time. It’s quick, easy and intuitive with multiple social platforms. 

29. Grammarly

Bloggers (or really anyone who writes extensively as part of their job) will appreciate Grammarly, an extension that serves as a digital proofreader, double-checking your grammar and offering word-choice and linguistic suggestions. 

30. RiteTag

If hashtags trip you up from time to time, the RiteTag extension can help by recommending relevant social tags for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other platforms with high follow and engagement rates.

31. Agorapulse

Social media mavens who post regular content on their platforms can make excellent use of Agorapulse, an extension that “makes social media publishing easy” by scheduling posts and giving you the ability to manage your content calendar in one easily-accessible place.

32. Pixlr Editor

If you need to edit photos on-the-go (and without access to Photoshop), Pixlr Editor has you covered. This extension “provides tools like layers, lasso tool, brush controls, cloning, and filters” and gives you the option to save your edits in a private library. 

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