If you’ve clicked on this video, it’s most likely because you find yourself in Google
Chrome on the regular.
Welcome to my World!
I’m going to share with you my picks for the top 13 Google Chrome features you should
be using.
Hey friends!
I’m Tasia and welcome back to my YouTube Channel where I share tech tips, app reviews,
and a ton of Google Tips.
Seriously, once you’ve watched this video, check out my Google Tips & Tactics playlist!
But let’s not waste any more time.
Let’s get into the best Chrome features to make life easier.
The first thing you need to know is that all of these Chrome features are built right into
Chrome itself - you don’t need any third-party extensions or plugins.
We have a lot to cover, including one of my favorite accessibility features, but let’s
start with all the things you can do with Chrome tabs.
Tip number 1: Pin tabs.
If you use the same tabs over and over again in Chrome, this tip is for you, it’s definitely
going to save you time.
So as an example, I pretty much live in the Google ecosystem so I always have my YouTube
Channel open, and my Gmail and Gcal, and all that good stuff.
So in order to easily access one of these tabs, we can just right-click on the tab and
select ‘pin’.
So you’ll notice, that tab is instantly shrunk down to the icon and pinned to the
top left corner of my Chrome browser.
Now it’s worth noting here that once you’ve pinned a tab, you can open and close other
tabs or close your Chrome browser entirely and that tab will still be pinned to the top
left when you relaunch your browser.
If you want to unpin a tab for any reason, it’s the same process.
Right-click the tab and select ‘unpin’.
Tip number 2: move multiple tabs at the same time.
So let’s say we want to move a few tabs to a second monitor, or reorganize our tabs.
It’s really easy to do so.
Just like you would select multiple files, you can select multiple tabs.
We’ll select one of the tabs we want to move, then just hold down the shift key and
select the last tab in the group you want to move.
Now all tabs are selected and you can move them at your leisure.
Now you might be thinking - But Tasia, what if I want to move a few tabs that aren’t
right next to each other?
Oh, I got you!
Now you’ll select the tab you want to move and hold down your control key on a PC or
command key on a Mac to select the other tabs you want to move.
Once selected, just rearrange that group of tabs as you wish.
Tip number 3: Create tab groups.
And yes, this is completely different than moving multiple tabs.
But we’re going to utilize some of those tricks we just learned to create these groups.
This is a huge lifesaver when you’re comparison shopping, or want to keep certain client tabs
grouped together, or email providers grouped together - whatever works for your organization.
So, using what we just learned to select multiple tabs, you can select any tabs you want to
be grouped together.
Then, right-click on any one of the selected tabs and select ‘add tabs to new group’.
Here, you can name the new group - and also add emojis if you so desire - then you can
even add a color, in order to easily identify the group.
You can also add a new tab to the group, you can ungroup everything if you don’t want
the group anymore, you can close the group or even move the group to an entirely new
window.
If you want to collapse all of the tabs in the group, just click on the title.
And do the same if you want to expand all the tabs in that group.
You can also drag a new tab and drop it into the group at any time.
And the same goes for removing a tab from the group, just drag it right on out of that
group.
And just when you thought, how many tab tips can there be?
I’ve got 3 more for ya!
So, with that said, tip number 4: mute tabs.
This is a handy one for those of us that are easily annoyed by video ads that auto-play
on webpages.
So, if you find yourself on a site that has those annoying video ads, and it’s interrupting
your experience, just head to the tab at the top.
If that site is playing audio, it will have a little speaker icon on the tab.
Simply right-click on the tab and select ‘mute site’.
By the way, certain sites like Outlook for example will auto-play a notification sound
whenever an email comes in, so that little sound icon would only appear when the audio
notification is playing, but you can still use this trick to mute that tab.
Tip number 5: send your Chrome tabs to your phone.
Yes, really!
For this one, you need to have Chrome installed not just on your desktop, but also on your
mobile device.
So, if you were in the middle of something, but had to run out and want to finish something
on the go, just head to the tab, utilize our trusty right-click, and this time select to
send to your phone.
So here’s what this looks like.
I find you need to be in your Chrome app on your phone right as you send the tab or else
it can sometimes get lost.
So, over on my phone, I’ve got the Chrome app open, and look here - this little popup
near the top tells me I’ve received a tab.
All we have to do is click on ‘open’ to open up that tab, sent from my Mac to my iPhone.
So rounding out our tab tips is tip number 6: open specific tabs on startup.
This one is an oldie but goodie, and darn it if it doesn’t just save you a boatload
of time.
If you always open specific sites when you’re online, why not have Chrome do the work for
you?
For this we’ll head to the settings section of Chrome by clicking the 3 dot menu icon
in the top right and selecting ‘settings’.
From here, click on ‘on startup’ on the left hand side.
Here, you have a few options.
I actually find this option of continuing where you left off to be super helpful, but
you can also select ‘open a specific page or set of pages’.
From here, you can either manually add a new page, or you can use the current pages you
have open.
So obviously for this, you’d want to have the sites you want already open and then you’d
select this option.
Now when you restart Chrome, those tabs you selected will automatically open for you.
And before we move to my favorite accessibility feature, if you’re liking these tips so
far, remember to give this video a like and subscribe to my YouTube Channel for even more
content like this.
Tip number 7 - are you even ready for this?!?
This is my favorite accessibility feature of Chrome.
Enable live caption.
That’s right, now you can have Chrome automatically add closed captioning on video and audio files.
And I’m talking video and audio files from the web AND from your local hard drive files.
Ya!
I know!
So here’s how it works.
So let’s head back to our settings section in Chrome.
This time, click on the advanced option on the left, and select ‘accessibility’.
Right here at the top, ensure live captions is toggled on.
Now another pro tip here is that you can even adjust some of your caption preferences like
the size and style.
But here’s what this looks like once it’s enabled.
From any webpage that has audio or video, closed captioning will automatically appear
for you.
So let’s say you’re listening to one of your favorite murder podcasts but you need
captioning, right here at the bottom, the captioning auto-starts.
Now you may remember I said this works on any audio or video content you have on your
local drive too.
That’s because you can drag any audio or video file into your Chrome browser to play
it.
- did you know that?
How’s that for an extra tip within a tip?
- Here’s what this looks like.
Let’s grab a video file from my hard drive and we’ll drag it and drop it into chrome.
Instantly, a new browser tab is opened up and my file will automatically start to play
in Chrome and would you look at that, there are my AI-generated live captions from Chrome.
You love to see it!
By the way, there is another way you can quickly toggle on and off the live caption option
without going in and out of your settings - but you’ll have to wait until tip number
11 for that!
Tip number 8: utilize keyboard shortcuts in Chrome.
There are a whole whack of shortcuts, so I’ve included a link to all of them in the description
below.
But here are my two favorite, most used chrome keyboard shortcuts.
To open a new tab, just select control and t on a PC or command t on a Mac, and if you
want to open incognito mode quickly, just hit control, shift, n on a PC or command,
shift n on a Mac.
Tip number 9: Utilize Chrome’s safety check - this is a must if you allow Chrome to remember
your passwords.
This is password protection to the max!
Head back to your settings.
On the left-hand side, click the ‘safety check’ option.
From here, select ‘check now’.
Luckily for me, Chrome hasn’t detected any compromised passwords.
If you have some passwords that are showing as compromised, you’ll have a red triangle
with a white escalation point in it and you’ll be able to review all the sites where your
password is compromised and Chrome will even tell you what you need to change in order
to protect passwords.
Tip number 10: guest mode.
A perfect, hidden chrome feature for when someone else needs to use your computer.
So Chrome is great because it syncs your bookmarks, passwords, and preferences across all your
devices, which is really great for you, but not so great if someone else needs to use
your computer.
So, in that case, all you have to do is open up Chrome or a new Chrome tab, and click your
profile icon, then select ‘guest’.
A new guest tab is opened up.
Now I still recommend, you close your other browser tabs before handing over your computer,
or really this would be pointless!
Tip number 11: Integrated audio and video control.
Ooohhhh, this is such a handy feature!
You can control audio and video playback from any tab.
Like, YouTube videos, or podcasts, any audio playing in a tab….
I know!
So, let’s say you have a YouTube video playing, no matter what tab you’re working in, you’ll
be able to have a quick view and control of what video is playing.
So, I’m playing one of my YouTube videos, but now I’m in another tab.
Let’s head right up here to the little music player icon beside your profile picture.
Click that music icon to see all the tabs that have audio playing.
So, I’ve got stitcher open for my podcast, but here’s my youtube video.
I can control any playback option right from here in this tab, I don’t have to toggle
back to the specific tab.
If you want to quickly get back to that tab, just click on the title and that tab will
pop back up.
And remember the live caption feature in Chrome?
Well, this little area is the other way you can toggle on and off your closed captioning,
from any tab, without having to go back into your settings.
It’s right here.
Tip number 12 is one I’ve talked about in other videos, but it bears repeating.
Search inside websites with omni-box.
I’m talking search a specific website without having to manually go to that website first.
So let’s head up to our trusty address bar here, and we’ll begin by typing in the website
we want to search in.
So I’ll type youtube.com here and now on the right hand side Chrome is telling me to
press tab to search within Youtube.
So, let’s press tab and of course I’ll search myself Tasia Custode, and hit enter
and I’m instantly brought to YouTube video search for my name without having to first
go to YouTube.
This works for wikipedia or any other site that has search.
And last but not least, we’ve made it to tip number 13: use ChromeCast to cast to another
chrome cast capable device.
This is one of my most-used Google Chrome features.
There are actually a couple of ways to do this.
First, if you want to share a specific website to, say your smart TV, click the 3 dot menu
icon in the top right of your chrome browser, and then select ‘cast’.
Chrome will start looking for compatible devices to cast this webpage out to.
Simple select the device you want to cast to and that webpage will be shown on that
device.
By the way, if you want to cast a lot, you can keep this chromecast icon in your bar
at the top all the time.
Just right click on it and select ‘always show icon’.
Now you can also cast directly from a YouTube video.
So, let’s say we want to play this YouTube video on our smart TV.
Right here in the playbar of the YouTube video, we have the chromecast symbol.
If you hover it will tell you that’s the ‘play on tv’ symbol.
All you need to do is select that and the YouTube video will automatically be on the
big screen.
If you’ve watched all the way through this video, first I love you and thank you so much,
and second, drop me a comment letting me know which of these Chrome features was your favorite.
And, remember, I’ve got more Chrome video content in the description below.
Well those are my top 13 Google Chrome features.
Do you think these Chrome features make life easier?
Let everyone know in the comments below.
As always, thank you so much for watching, if you liked this video, I want to know so
give it a like, a share, or leave that comment below.
You can click right about here to subscribe to my channel and right about here for even
more content.
Thanks for watching and see ya next time.