I had to search a bit to find where we last talked about the upcoming Chrome Extension toolbar. This feature, first uncovered in April 2019, is a simple concept that can have a pretty big impact on your omnibar’s real estate. Instead of all your extensions robbing precious room next to your URL bar, this new change tucks those same extensions into a clickable drop down right next to your 3-dot overflow menu.
The concept is similar in many ways to the way PWAs handle extensions. Being web-driven apps, PWAs still have some browser-like tricks up their sleeves in the 3-dot menu up top, and that includes your pinned extensions. In a similar fashion, this new feature in Chrome OS 82 simply tucks those extensions out of sight until you need them. When you do, you click the puzzle piece and then click the extension you need.
Since we last saw this feature it has grown up a bit. Now, when you expand your extensions menu, you will have a few other options besides just clicking on a single extension. As you can see in the image above, the extensions menu has a list of your extensions, a pin next to each, and a separate overflow menu for each as well. The pins serve to place the extension back up into the omnibar for quicker access, and it’s a very nice touch.
The overflow menus next to each extension serve the same purpose as a right-click on that extension, giving quicker access to things like removal and access options. This comes in most handy when in tablet mode as it makes managing your extension an all-around easier task. This is one of many new features we’re tracking for Chrome OS 82, set to arrive in May alongside the much-anticipated Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook. While it feels like we’ve found everything coming to 82, my bet is there is even more under the surface, so stay tuned.
