9 Google Chrome features you really should be using

If you’re like about 70% of computer users worldwide, you use Google’s Chrome browser as your gateway to the web, from conducting research and catching up on news to emailing and interacting with cloud apps. There are several tools built into Chrome that you might not know about, but should. They can improve your browsing experience significantly, enhancing productivity, organization, security, search, and more.

Even if you have already heard about some of these tools, consider this guide a refresher and encouragement to use them.

1. Chrome profiles: Keep work and personal browsing separate

You can add more than one user profile to Chrome. Each profile will have its own set of bookmarks, browsing history, website logins, and other data. For example, you can create one profile specifically for your work-related browsing, so that bookmarks and websites associated with your job are kept separate from your personal activity online.

To create another profile: Click your headshot or current profile icon that’s toward the upper right in Chrome. On the panel for your profile that opens, click Add new profile.

Click your profile icon, then select Add new profile.
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A large panel will open over the screen. You can create a new profile by signing in with another Google account. If this account already has Chrome profile data (bookmarks, browsing history, logins) associated with it, these will be synced to your PC.

You can sign into an existing Google account or create a profile that’s not connected to a Google account.
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Or you can select to create a new profile without signing in with another Google account. Browsing information that’s created in Chrome while using this new profile will be saved only on your PC.

Naming a new Chrome profile and choosing a color scheme.
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After you create the new profile, it’ll appear on the panel of your first profile. Click the name of this new profile; this will launch another instance of Chrome that will let you browse under that profile. You can run two (or more) instances of Chrome on your PC, each with a different user profile.

2. Password checkup: Review (and fix) your website logins

By default, Chrome automatically saves your usernames and passwords for websites that require a login in a service called Google Password Manager. If you don’t use a dedicated password manager app, GPM is a convenient tool for storing and managing login info. (See our separate guide to Google Password Manager.) It’s easy to “set and forget” passwords, so it’s a good idea to periodically check the health of your logins, updating usernames or passwords as needed.

Click the three-dot icon at Chrome’s upper right. On the menu that opens, select Passwords and autofill and then Google Password Manager. GPM will open in a new browser tab, where you’ll see the login information for the websites you’ve saved to GPM. You can click a website name to change or delete your username or password for it.

An important  feature to use is the Checkup tool. Along the left, click Checkup. Chrome will analyze all of your website passwords, rating which have weak security and notifying you if any have been compromised or if you’ve reused any across websites. You can click to see a list of the offending passwords, and the password manager’s interface will guide you through changing them.

Check for compromised, reused, or weak passwords, then change them as needed.
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If you’d like, you can use the password manager as a self-standing app on your PC. When Google Password Manager is open in a tab, click the Install Google Password Manager icon at the right end of the address bar. After it’s installed on your PC, you can click the desktop shortcut to launch Google Password Manager on its own, apart from Chrome.

3. Print to PDF: Turn a web page into a PDF

“Printing” a web page to a PDF can be useful for archiving the page as its contents appeared when you viewed it, or sharing a page when a web link to it won’t be convenient or possible for the person you want to share it with.

The fastest way to do this: With the web page open, hold the Ctrl key and type p on a Windows PC (or the Cmd key and p on a Mac). Alternatively, click the three-dot icon at the upper right of Chrome, and on the menu that opens, select Print.

A large panel opens. To the right of “Destination,” see if “Save as PDF” is listed inside the selection box. If it’s not, click this box to open a dropdown menu and select Save as PDF.

Set the Destination field to Save as PDF.
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The rest of this panel lists settings for formatting the PDF that you can change. (If you don’t see them, click More settings.) When you’ve set everything the way you want, click Save. You’ll be prompted to select a location on your PC’s storage where you want to save the PDF. Make your choice, and then Chrome will output the entire web page as a PDF and save it to your PC.

4. Reading list: Curate a list of web pages to read later

Chrome offers a nifty feature that lets you gather web pages that you want to remember to read later. The difference between saving a web page to Chrome’s reading list versus saving it as a bookmark is that the reading list is meant to motivate you, such as to read important information that you’re doing for research. You can chart your progress by marking a page as read when you’re finished with it.

With the web page open, click the three-dot icon at the upper right of Chrome. On the menu that opens along the right, click Bookmarks and lists and then select Reading list. Then click Add tab to reading list at the bottom of the panel. Repeat this process to add more web pages to the reading list.

To open your reading list, click the three-dot icon at the upper right, then select Bookmarks and lists > Reading list > Show reading list.The list will open in a panel on the right.

Gather web pages you want to read in Chrome’s reading list.
Howard Wen / IDG

On the reading list, clicking the title of a web page opens it in the browser tab to the left. When you’re finished reading it, move the pointer over the page’s title in the list and select the checkmark to mark the page as read or the x to remove it from the reading list.

5. Reading mode: Make lengthy content easier to read

You may come across an article that you want to concentrate on without other elements on the page’s layout (such as ads, images, videos, or sidebars) distracting you. Or maybe your eyesight is struggling with how the text appears on the page. Reading mode can help, and it works very well for reading long articles.

With the web page open, click the three-dot icon at the upper right, then select More tools > Reading mode. Chrome will extract the main article from the page and format it for easier reading in the reading mode panel that appears on the right.

Try reading mode for a distraction-free environment to read long articles.
Howard Wen / IDG

You can widen the reading mode panel by clicking-and-holding the double-bar icon on its left frame. Drag this icon toward the left, and the margins for the text in the reader mode panel will automatically adjust themselves.

Along the top of the reading mode panel is a toolbar that lets you adjust the text font and size, and the spacing between text characters and lines of text. You can also change the background color.

6. Tab groups: Organize and name tab collections

Chrome’s tab groups feature lets you organize tabs of related web pages into a collection that has a title. When you click the group title, all the web pages that you organized under it will open in the browser. This can be useful if you want to open multiple web pages that you frequently visit with a single click. You can create several different tab groups — say, one group for the core web apps you use every day for work, another for research related to a specific project, and so on.

To create a new tab group: At the left end of the Bookmarks toolbar, click the grid icon and select Create new tab group. Alternatively, click the three-dot icon at the upper right of Chrome, and on the menu that opens, select Tab groups > Create new tab group.

Or you can create a new tab group starting from an existing tab: Simply right-click the tab and select Add tab to group > New group from the menu that appears.

A special tab will open that prompts you to type in a name for your new tab group. You can optionally select a highlight color for the new tab group.

Creating a new tab group.
Howard Wen / IDG

Press the Enter key, and your new tab group will appear among the tabs in Chrome. If your Bookmarks toolbar is open, the group will also appear to the left of the grid icon.

To add a web page to a tab group: Simply drag a tab that’s already open in Chrome to the right of the tab group name and let it go.

Adding a tab to a group via drag-and-drop.
Howard Wen / IDG

To close the tabs in a tab group: Click the tab group name. The tabs that are opened to the right of it will close.

To open the tabs in a tab group: Click the tab group name, and the tabs that you organized under it will open to its right. Or, if you have the Bookmarks toolbar open, you can click the tab group name there or click the grid icon and select the group you want to open.

Navigating to a tab group via the Bookmarks toolbar.
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Finally, you can click the three-dot icon at the upper right of Chrome, then select Tab groups, the name of the tab group that you want, and Open group.

To manage a tab group: Right-click on the tab group name. On the menu that opens, you can click the following:

New tab in group: Opens a new, blank tab to the right of the tab group name. The web page you navigate to in this tab will be added to the tab group.

Move group to new window: Opens all the web pages organized in this group tab in a new browser window.

Ungroup: The web pages in this tab group will be opened, but the tab group (and its name) will be removed. This action essentially “frees” the web pages that you put into this tab group.

Close group: Closes a tab group, which removes it from the browser’s tabs toolbar. You can reopen a closed group via the Bookmarks toolbar or by selecting the three-dot icon and Chrome’s upper right, selecting Tab groups, and choosing the group you want.

Delete group: Deletes both the tab group name and all the web pages that you organized in it.

[ Related: 8 brilliant browser tab tricks for Windows power users ]

7. Google Lens: Search by image

Google Lens is a visual search feature built into Chrome. It lets you search for the source of an image on a web page, find variants of the image, or find or similar looking images. You can also use it to translate foreign words that appear in a photo or other image.

It can also be used to find an item for sale online. For example, if you have Google Lens search on a photo of a laptop, it might find an online store where you can buy it.

To use Google Lens in Chrome, right-click on a photo or image on a web page. On the menu that opens, select Search with Google Lens. A panel will open along the right of the browser, showing search results that you can browse through. You can click any result to open its web link in the browser.

Using Google Lens image search.
Howard Wen / IDG

In the main browser window that shows the image Google Lens searched on, you can fine-tune the image search in various ways:

Adjust the frame around the image by clicking-and-dragging its corners or sides. This may prompt Google Lens to provide more precise search results.

Draw a frame around a specific area of the image. Position the crosshair over the image, then click-and-drag it in any direction to frame the area of the image that you want Google Lens to analyze and search.

Translate text that’s in a language other than the one set as your browser’s default. Draw a frame around the text or double-click it to highlight it, then select Translate on the menu that opens. Google Lens will open a translation tool in the panel along the right.

Google Lens can translate text in an image.
Howard Wen / IDG

8. Share a web page: Send a link to another device

You’re viewing a web page on your PC but want to see it on your phone, tablet, or another PC. Here are two unique ways to forward a web page link to another device:

Method 1: Send the link to a signed-in device

First, you must be signed into Chrome with a Google account. The device you want to forward the link to also must be signed into Chrome with the same Google account.

With the web page open in Chrome on your PC, click the three-dot icon toward the upper right. On the menu that opens, select Cast, save, and share and then Send to your devices.

A menu pops open that lists any mobile device and other PCs that are signed in with your Google account. If you click the name of your smartphone on this menu, that device will receive a notification in Chrome. Tap this notification to open the web page.

Sending a web link to a signed-in device.
Howard Wen / IDG

Method 2: Create a QR code for the link

If the smartphone or other device that you want to forward the link to isn’t signed in to your Google account, you can create a QR code for the web page’s link.

With the web page open in Chrome on your PC, click the three-dot icon toward the upper right. On the menu that opens, select Cast, save, and share > Create QR code.

A QR code image will pop open below the web address bar.

Creating a QR code to send a link.
Howard Wen / IDG

Use the smartphone’s camera to capture it — most recent smartphone models will recognize a QR code. When you tap the link that appears, the web page will open in the smartphone’s default browser, whether it’s Chrome or another such as Firefox, Microsoft Edge, or Safari.

9. Translation: Manage the languages that Chrome translates

By default, Chrome offers to translate a web page if it’s not in your preferred native language. (If it doesn’t, click the Translate this page icon at the right end of the address bar or click the three-dot icon at the upper right and choose Translate.)

It’s worth taking the time to manage this feature so that it’s set best for your browsing, particularly if you frequently visit sites that are in languages other than your native one. Click the three-dot icon at the upper right of Chrome. On the menu that opens, scroll to the bottom and select Settings. The Settings page opens in a new tab. Along the left column, click Languages.

On the page that appears, scroll down to the Google Translate section. Here you can tell Chrome to automatically translate pages that are in certain languages without asking you first. You can also tell it not to offer to translate pages in some languages — useful for people who are fluent in more than one language. For languages that you don’t specify as “automatically translate” or “never offer to translate,” Chrome will continue to offer to translate the page.

Setting translation preferences in Chrome.
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Want more Chrome tips? See 8 great productivity tips for Chrome.