While there’s no shortage of good Google Chrome alternative browsers, both for smartphones and computers, Chrome still remains the undisputed leader. Well, Google’s offering certainly deserves all the traction because people love the browser for its minimal UI, integration to Google’s services, and a plethora of features. Sure, it’s not without its flaws, but Chrome remains arguably the best browser out there. If you’re using Chrome, chances are, you already know a lot about the Chrome Settings, Extensions, and tricks, but do you know every Chrome trick? Well, we don’t think so. That’s why we are listing 17 cool Chrome tricks and tips that aren’t very well known in 2020.

In this article, we are only mentioning those tricks that you can access without changing Google Chrome. If you want more advanced tricks that depend on changing how Chrome works by using the Chrome Flags feature. You can click on the link to read it.

When you launch Google Chrome, it opens a clean homepage with a simple Google search bar and a collection of your most visited pages. You can change this behavior if you want. You can even choose to launch a single tab or multiple tabs. For example, I have set it to launch a couple of websites (WordPress, Quip, Mail, and Beebom Website).

Once everything is set-up, Chrome will open selected webpages when you launch it.

I spend hours inside Google Chrome writing, searching, and researching. This means I open and juggle dozen of tabs at a time. However, as much as I open new websites, there are a few websites that are permanent in my workflow. And to easily access them, I pin them.

3. Create Chrome Apps

Many of our favorite websites are web-apps. And if you want to keep them separate from normal browsing sessions and want a quick shortcut to access them, you can convert them Into Google Chrome apps. You can use this Google Chrome trick on both smartphones and desktops.

One of the newest feature addition to Google Chrome is the ability to manage audio and video playback from anywhere. Previously, you had to open the tab that was playing music/video and then control the playback from there.

In the above screenshots, I have shown how it looks on YouTube and SoundCloud. But you can use it on pretty much any website. Even if you have multiple websites playing media, it will work.

One of the niftiest Google Chrome tricks and the one that stops me from moving to an alternate browser like Firefox is the ability to search inside websites without creating custom searches.

There are times when we want to search for specific terms on a page when browsing on Chrome. On desktops, it’s simple. You hit Ctrl+F (CMD+F on Mac), and a search box opens. You enter the text and hit enter and it searches for that string of text on the page.

Just like your desktop, Google Chrome comes with a built-in task manager. You can use this to curb the resource usage of the Chrome browser. We all know that Google Chrome is a resource hog. But sometimes, it’s not the fault of the browser.

Instead, it’s a website you are visiting or a Chrome Extension that you have installed. If your Chrome browser is eating up too much resources, remember to open the task manager to check it out. To open the task manager, go to Settings -> More Tools -> Task Manager.

Google Chrome comes with a built-in casting capability. It allows you to cast your browser and even your entire desktop to Chromecast or Andy Chromecast supported device. I use to cast my laptop’s screen on my TV.

Chrome URLs are a good way to quickly open specific pages such as settings, extensions, and more in your Google Chrome browsers. There are plenty of Chrome URLs and you should click on the link to read our article on Chrome URL usage.

10. Move Multiple Tabs

There are times when we have a number of tabs opened in Chrome on our PC or Mac and to reduce the clutter, we decide to move some particular tabs to a new window. However, chances are, you are doing it by dragging each tab to a new window one by one, which is an annoying process. Thankfully, you can easily move multiple tabs in Chrome.

11. Add Calendar Events from Omnibox

Chrome’s Omnibox aka the address bar packs in a lot of functionality. You can use the Omnibox to do calculations, check weather, convert units, start timer, search into websites directly and more. Moreover, you can use the Omnibox for more advanced tasks like sending an email or saving an event to the Calendar. However, you will have to follow a few steps before you can start adding Google Calendar events from the calendar. Here goes:

  • The Google Calendar page should then open up with all your details. You can just press “Save” here to save the event.

Here’s a cool Chrome trick that not may people know and it has to do with Chrome autofill. The autofill feature in Chrome is pretty great. It saves you from the hassle of entering your addresses and card details again and again. However, what if you have started using a different card or moved to a new place? Don’t worry, Chrome lets you manually update the Autofill data.

Chrome’s notifications feature is great. However, it can get annoying too, especially if you allow many websites to send you notifications. Also, it’s important to note that these notifications arrive even when you’ve closed Chrome. Thankfully, you can block Chrome notifications.

On a PC or Mac, go to Chrome Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Site Settings.

Chrome features a number of great keyboard shortcuts that can surely make things faster for you. Here are the most useful ones:

  • Ctrl+Shift+N: You can open Incognito mode with this shortcut.

  • Ctrl+Shift+T: Accidentally closed a tab? Hit this keyboard shortcut to quickly reopen it. You can also hit the key multiple times to restore multiple tabs.

  • Ctrl+Shift+Delete: This keyboard shortcut takes you to the “Clear browsing data” page, where you can clear Chrome’s cookies, cache, history and other data.

  • Ctrl+L: You can quickly move your cursor to the Omnibox with this shortcut.

  • Shift+Esc: Want to keep a check on the memory hogging tabs? Hit this shortcut to open up Chrome’s task manager.

  • Ctrl+W: You can quickly close a tab with this keyboard shortcut.

  • Ctrl+N: Quickly open a new Chrome window with this shortcut.

  • Ctrl+T: This keyboard shortcut lets you open a new tab.

Note: You can use these commands on a Mac by replacing the Ctrl key with the “Command” key and Alt key with the “Option” key.

15. Search Your Emails Directly from Omnibox

Chrome’s Omnibox is pretty powerful and can do a lot of things including making general Google searches, simple mathematical operations, searches inside specific websites, and more. However, did you know that you can directly search for your emails using the Chrome Omnibox? Well, if you didn’t know that then this point will come handy to you. You will have to set it up first for it to work. For enabling searching email from Chrome’s Omnibox, we will be using its “Custom Search feature”.

Now, click on the “Add” button to add this custom search. Whenever you want to search for an email, just type your custom shortcut and hit either the tab or the space button. It will turn the Omnibox into a search field. Now, type the query and hit enter to see your search results.

16. View Two Chrome Tabs At Once on Mobile

Most of us are familiar with split-screen mode on our Android devices which allows us to use two apps at once. However, not many of us know that we can even use the split-screen mode to display two Chrome tabs at once.

17. Use the Right-Click Menu on Tab

Chrome comes with many hidden features which are quite easily accessible when you know how to access them. Take, for example, the right-click menu that nobody ever tries to access despite the fact that it’s present there all the time. When you right click on a Chrome’s tab, you can access many features. We already explained the pinning tab feature above.