12 Chrome Extensions Every Author Needs

Chrome is the most popular browser, but if you're just using the basic version, you're missing out. In this episode, we talk about 11 extensions to help make you a more productive, better writer.

Whether you're using a Mac or a PC, hopefully you're using Google Chrome. It's the most popular web browser, and if you're using just the basic version, you're missing out. There are 11 extensions that are going to change your writing life.

If you're still a Windows user clicking that little blue E, there's a beautiful world out there you haven't experienced yet. You're going to enjoy the Internet so much more, and with these extensions, you'll be a much more productive and better writer.

1. Grammarly

Update 2026: Thomas no longer recommends Grammarly because it no longer explains the rule and removes voice.

Thomas: The first is Grammarly. We've talked a lot on this show about how important it is to have an editor, but you can't always afford one for your marketing. Say you're putting together an email. Ideally, you'd have an editor look it over. I do. My wife is my editor, and I'm an awful writer when it comes to grammar, typos, spelling, and punctuation. When I'd craft an email going out to thousands of people, she'd find a dozen or two dozen errors in it, until I started using Grammarly.

Grammarly is an extension for Chrome, and it catches about 95% of what my wife was catching. It'll catch if you're using "your" instead of "you're," and when it corrects you, it explains the grammatical rule. It's not just fixing your grammar, it's educating you on grammar. I never fully understood commas, but after using Grammarly for a year and a half, I feel like I understand them now. I'm introducing fewer comma typos into my writing because I know Grammarly will flag a missing comma after an introductory clause. It checks for hundreds of things that Word doesn't.

It'll even catch the wrong word, one that's spelled correctly but used incorrectly, like a word that sounds similar or is missing a letter. Microsoft Word and other spell checkers usually miss that, but Grammarly catches it and suggests the correct word. It's changed my life. There's a free version that checks for a lot, and I paid for the pro version, which checks for even more. It's like having a professional editor sitting next to me as I write, and it makes me much more confident writing blog posts and emails. It's got a Mac app, a PC app, and it installs right into Chrome. I work with a lot of authors, and Grammarly would catch a lot of what they miss when they're writing.

2. AdBlock

Jim: The second extension is AdBlock. I've been using it for about two years, and it was a game changer overnight. It blocks the ads that pop up on sites and keeps you from getting distracted when you're reading, because some of those ads are well done. You get distracted, go down that rabbit hole, and lose five, 10, even 15 minutes.

I encourage you to try it. These days, a pop-up will sometimes say, "We noticed you're using an ad blocker, please don't do this," and I get it. They want to make money off their site. But if you want to be less distracted, try this extension. It also makes web pages load faster, since there's less code and fewer things trying to load. And it improves your privacy and security. If you haven't tried the free AdBlock, use it. I think it'll be a game changer for you overnight.

Thomas: I don't use AdBlock, partly because I want to encourage the websites I visit for free to keep giving me stuff for free. I remember an ethics class in college where one of the models they gave us was, "act in such a way as if you want it to be a general rule." I don't want everyone on the Internet to use AdBlock, because then nothing on the Internet would be free. There'd be no way to monetize free content. So I feel guilty using ad blockers, even though Jim's right about all those benefits. Jim feels no guilt. I do, because I want to support the websites I use without paying for each one individually.

3. Just Read

Thomas: There's a middle ground, Jim. It's an extension called Just Read. It loads the whole page with the ads and everything, but then you can punch a button and it strips out the ads, the sidebars, and the header, turning the page into effectively a print version, just the text. It makes for a beautiful reading experience. Click the button, and everything disappears, leaving just black text on a white background. Very easy to read.

4. Evernote Web Clipper

Thomas: The next extension is Evernote Web Clipper. If you're doing research for your book, Evernote can be a great way to collect it all in one place. Folks like Michael Hyatt swear by it. It's the one extension here I don't use. I haven't jumped into Evernote yet, but I acknowledge that people who use it are more productive than the rest of us. If you're overwhelmed with scattered research, you may want to explore it. It's effective, and it lets you search through all of your notes, even handwriting on a whiteboard.

5. Feedly Subscribe Button

Extension number five is Feedly's subscribe button. I don't know if you used Google Reader back in the day, Jim, but I was a big fan of it and the idea of subscribing to blogs and news sites via something other than email. I like to keep my email transactional, people write me emails, I take action on them, but for news I like that to be separate. Feedly lets you subscribe to blogs, and almost every blog has the technology to let you do it. With the Feedly subscribe button, you can do it in one click. Back when I had a radio show, I subscribed to hundreds of news sources and blogs through Feedly, which made it easy to put together the show notes.

6. LastPass

Jim: The next tool is LastPass. I've been using it for about a year and a half to two years, and it's been extremely efficient. You go to LastPass.com and only need to know one password. LastPass fills in and encrypts passwords for every site you visit. When you log into a site, it asks if you want to save the password.

So whether it's banking or my email provider, LastPass gives me the password. I don't have to type one in every time. Before LastPass, I realized how much time I spent looking at my printed-out password list. I believe every password should be different. I'm not one of these people who memorizes one password and reuses it everywhere. That's not smart.

Thomas: Jim, I want to explain why it's so important to have a different password for each site. If one website is compromised and they get your password, and you've reused it elsewhere, they now have access to all of those other accounts. If you used the same password for LinkedIn and your email, and LinkedIn gets hacked, that password is now publicly available. Hackers who hacked LinkedIn posted those passwords online for anyone to get.

So if I wanted to, I could log into your email account and read all your emails, or email all your friends an ad for pills I was selling, or worse. You'd be embarrassed, because thousands of websites have been hacked. There's a website called Have I Been Pwned where you can enter your email or username and check if you've been compromised anywhere. You probably have. So many major sites have been breached. The best way to stay secure is to use a different password for each site. When LinkedIn gets hacked and forces a password reset, the hackers are left with nothing since you've already changed it.

You're much more secure with something like LastPass, even though it doesn't feel that way. Having your passwords "all in one place" sounds vulnerable, but they're encrypted, and LastPass itself has never been compromised. Meanwhile, plenty of other websites that don't encrypt the same way get hacked constantly, and you're protected because you're not reusing passwords.

Jim: LastPass tells you upfront, "This is your master password. Do not lose it. If you lose it, you're out of luck and have to start all over."

Thomas: And they can't recover it for you. The other benefit is that your LastPass password is the kind of thing you'd put on paper in a safe deposit box. If you were to pass away suddenly, your heirs could access your whole digital world without having to sue each organization and prove you're dead. A little morbid, but a good practice.

Jim: What I do is write down my LastPass password physically, and I know where it is, referenced by website, so no one but me and Darci would know what it means. If you don't have a safe deposit box, find another way, just don't write "LASTPASS" next to your master password.

7. StayFocused

Thomas: The next extension is StayFocused. If you're the kind of author who gets distracted on Facebook or Twitter, StayFocused lets you block websites. Once a site is on your block list, you're only allowed to use it for the amount of time you specify. I have this on my Chrome. I'm only allowed 30 minutes on Facebook, and after that, it won't load. It keeps me productive. If you're doing NaNoWriMo, this might be a great extension. Block the sites that distract you most. You don't need to check the news every 30 minutes. It'll be okay. You can focus on your book.

Jim: And the reality is our willpower is depleted every day. We wake up with more of it, which is why it's harder to resist food at night if we're on a diet. When your willpower is strong, you set up StayFocused, and it reminds you when your willpower is weak, "Sorry, we're not going there." It's really helpful.

8. RescueTime for Chrome

Thomas: The next app, along the same lines, is RescueTime for Chrome. It used to be an expensive app, but they now have a free version that's quite robust. RescueTime doesn't keep you off Facebook, it just reports how much time you spent there and on every other site you visit. It also scores your other activities on a scale of +2 to -2. When I used it, being in PowerPoint, Keynote, or Word earned +2, while being on Twitter earned -1. You get points at the end of the day showing how productive you were.

There's a principle in business that what gets measured gets managed. Just knowing you'll see the report changes your behavior. It's not shared with anyone, though they do have an accountability partner program, maybe we should try that, Jim. But simply measuring your time helps you be more productive with it.

Jim: My son Micah was home from college one summer, and we were working out together. He said, "Dad, get My Fitness Pal for your phone." I did, and you plug in how many calories you want to eat per day, then scan the foods you eat and it calculates the rest. I was amazed how quickly I hit my calorie count. Before that, I thought I was doing fine eating right, but seeing it in black and white was a wake-up call. It's like being nickeled and dimed to death, it's not the huge purchases that break your budget, it's this and this and this adding up without you noticing. What Thomas is describing does the same thing for your time. You think you only spend 20 minutes a day on Facebook, then you see it's actually an hour and a half. That's a huge motivator to cut back.

Thomas: That's right. You often think you're spending more time writing than you really are. If you have a tab open in Google Docs or Word, you assume that's writing time, then the report shows you only spent 10% of your day actually writing. You look closer and realize the rest was research. It's very helpful for staying productive.

9. Boomerang

Thomas: The ninth extension is Boomerang. It lets you put off emails until a future time. Someone sends you something you need to act on in a week, and you can say, "Put this back in my inbox in a week," or "Put it back if I don't get a reply in two days." So if you email your agent or editor and they don't respond in two days, it lands back in your inbox. It's useful for procrastinating strategically. I don't use it often, but when I do, it's very useful. It also works for Yahoo.

Jim: A lot of people forward an email to themselves for later, you can do that in Outlook, but it's much more laborious. This is a cleaner, faster way to do it.

Thomas: That's right. It's also free. You can boomerang 10 emails a month on the free plan, which is all I ever need. There's a paid version too.

10. Rapportive / Discoer.ly

Thomas: The next plugin is completely free, and I really like it. It's called Rapportive, and it installs into Gmail. It shows you a photo of the person you're emailing, their city, and a way to connect on LinkedIn. If someone has a LinkedIn profile, you get all this information about them, which helps if you're scheduling a meeting and need to know their time zone. I also write nicer emails when I see the person's photo right there. It helps me know if a stranger emailing me is legitimate. In the business world, if someone's not on LinkedIn, they're probably not someone you can trust as easily, since you can't see their friends or reputation.

With one click I can see if we have a mutual friend on LinkedIn, which also builds trust and makes it easier for them to email me.

11. Klout

Thomas: The 11th tool is Klout. If you're checking someone out for a promotion and want to know how much influence their 10,000 Twitter followers actually represent, the Klout extension puts a Klout score next to every Twitter account. It gives you a sense of how influential someone is, which helps you focus your social media energy on people with higher scores. We're not huge fans of social media promotion, but there are effective ways to use it, and Klout has a robust algorithm for measuring influence. It also protects you from wasting time on bots, trolls, and spammers, since they tend to have very low Klout scores.

12. Send to Kindle for Google Chrome

Jim: The last one is Send to Kindle for Google Chrome. If you're a Kindle person, you can click once and send any webpage you've highlighted straight to your Kindle. Is that right?

Thomas: That's right. It creates a little mini Kindle book just for you. If you're on a long blog post and want to read it later instead of on your computer screen, add the extension, and you're able to read it on your Kindle. There are other apps that do this too, InstaPaper and Pocket. I don't know if those work with Kindle, but they create beautiful save-for-later reading versions. On my iPad, I have all my saved Feedly articles in Pocket. It's a beautiful reading experience.

Is there an advantage to using extensions in the Chrome family?

Thomas: Some of these also exist for Firefox. AdBlock works for Firefox, I believe Grammarly does too, and so does LastPass. Some will only be available on Chrome. Chrome is what I know, and this episode is about Chrome. If you'd like us to cover Firefox, we can put one together. Since Firefox has fewer users, it has fewer extensions, and Safari even more so. I really like Chrome as a browser and the reading experience it offers, but the reason I don't use Safari is that its extension library is so small. Some of these extensions improve my experience so much that I'm willing to use Chrome over Safari just to have them.