Speed Up Your Browsing With Chrome Extension Shortcuts

Hey everyone, I wanted to share a cool trick that’s boosted my productivity: setting keyboard shortcuts for Chrome extensions. It’s a game-changer for quickly accessing your favorite tools and cleaning up your toolbar. If you’re tired of clicking around, this is for you.

Chrome makes it easy to assign keyboard shortcuts to any installed extension. This lets you open extensions fast, without relying on your mouse, and it also helps you clean up your browser by removing the need to pin lots of extension icons next to the address bar.

How to Add Keyboard Shortcuts to Chrome Extensions

  1. To start, head over to your Chrome extensions page. Click the three dots at the top-right of your browser. In the menu, hover over “More tools,” then select “Extensions”.
  2. Once you’re on the Extensions page, click the main menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the top-left corner to show more options.
  3. In the expanded menu, choose “Keyboard shortcuts”. It’s near the bottom.
  4. You’ll see a list of your installed extensions. To set a shortcut, click the pencil icon next to the extension you want to customize.
  5. When you click the pencil icon, the shortcut field becomes editable. Press your desired key combination – use Ctrl, Shift, or both, and any other key you like. Chrome will register this combo.
  6. The shortcut you set will now be visible next to the extension. I recommend choosing a shortcut that’s easy for you to remember, something that makes sense for that extension. For instance, Ctrl + B could be good for Bitmoji or Ctrl + G for Grammarly. This really streamlines how you use your most-used extensions!

How to Remove a Chrome Extension Shortcut

If you decide to remove a shortcut – say, because you don’t use an extension anymore or you want to assign the shortcut to a different extension - it’s super simple.

  1. Go back to the “Keyboard shortcuts” page in your Extensions settings. Click the pencil icon next to the shortcut that you’re looking to remove. This will clear out the shortcut so it’s blank or ready to be assigned a different combination.

How to Unpin Extensions from the Chrome Toolbar

After adding shortcuts, you might not need the extension icons visible on the toolbar. Unpinning the icons cleans things up.

  1. To unpin an extension from the toolbar, right-click the extension icon that you want to remove. In the context menu, choose “Unpin”.

    The extension icon will disappear from the toolbar for a less cluttered look.

Using keyboard shortcuts for extensions helps you browse more efficiently and makes your extensions way easier to use.