Best Chrome Extensions for Remote Workers, by the Job They Do

The best Chrome extensions for remote workers cover the jobs an office used to do for you: Loom for short video updates instead of meetings, the Zoom Chrome Extension for scheduling, StayFocusd or Momentum for focus, Grammarly and Text Blaze for writing, Bitwarden or 1Password for passwords, OneTab for tab overload, GoFullPage for screenshots, Toggl Track or Clockify for time tracking, and Keep Awake to keep the screen on. We opened each one's Chrome Web Store page on 27 September; the user counts below are what the store showed that day.

We left out extensions that promise to keep your Slack dot green. They were removed from the Chrome Web Store in 2024 and their clones carried malware, as covered in Slack Chrome extensions.

The shortlist

Meetings and async updates: Loom and Zoom

Loom records your screen, camera and voice from the toolbar and gives you a link to paste in Slack, Teams or email. A 3-minute walkthrough replaces a lot of "quick calls" across time zones. The free plan limits video length; teams pay for longer recordings.

The Zoom Chrome Extension adds a Zoom button to Google Calendar events, so an invite carries a meeting link without opening the Zoom app. If you set a Zoom status too, see how to keep your Zoom status active. For time zones across a team, our free Slack time zone converter turns one time into everyone's local time.

Focus: StayFocusd and Momentum

StayFocusd limits the time you spend on sites you choose, then blocks them for the rest of the day. It also has a "nuclear option" that blocks everything but an allow list for a set number of hours.

Momentum replaces Chrome's new tab page with a single focus line for the day, a short to-do list and a clock. It is the lighter option: a reminder, not a block.

Writing and snippets: Grammarly and Text Blaze

Grammarly checks spelling, grammar and tone in Gmail, Slack in the browser, Google Docs and most text boxes. In our test it also switched off the browser's own spell checker in a plain text box and in Slack's message box (Slack spell check not working). Remote work runs on writing, so it earns its place for most people. Company data rules matter here: Grammarly sends the text it checks to its servers, and some employers block it.

Text Blaze expands short commands into saved text: /standup becomes your daily update template, /intro your meeting intro. It fills in dates and form fields as it goes.

Passwords, tabs and screenshots

• • Bitwarden and 1Password fill passwords and one-time codes from a vault. Bitwarden has a free personal plan; 1Password is paid. Many companies issue one of them, so check before you install your own.
• • OneTab collapses every open tab into one list page with one click, which frees memory and gives you a clean window. Auto Tab Discard suspends tabs you have not used for a while, so they stop using memory, and reloads them when you click. Chrome's built-in Memory Saver does a simpler version of the same thing.
• • GoFullPage captures a whole scrolling page as one image or PDF, handy for bug reports and design feedback.

Time tracking and keeping the screen on

Toggl Track and Clockify add a timer button inside tools such as Jira, Asana, Trello, GitHub and Google Docs, so you can log time where the work happens. Both have free plans. They record what you start and stop yourself, which is a different thing from employer monitoring software; how to tell if that is on your laptop is in how to tell if you are being monitored at work.

Keep Awake keeps the screen on, or only the system awake, from a toolbar icon. It does not create input, so Slack and Teams still show you Away; the full explanation is in keep awake Chrome extension.

Before you install on a work laptop


• • Install from the Chrome Web Store only, and check the publisher name and the permissions it asks for.
• • Keep the count low. An extension with "Read and change all your data on all websites" can see every page you open, including your company's tools.
• • Watch for sales. The Great Suspender, a popular tab suspender, was sold to a new owner, and Google removed it in 2021 for malware.
• • Respect your company's policy. Managed Chrome can block extensions by policy. Do not work around it.

FAQ

What are the best Chrome extensions for working from home? Loom for video updates, Zoom for scheduling, StayFocusd or Momentum for focus, Grammarly for writing, Bitwarden or 1Password for passwords, and OneTab for tabs.

Is there a Chrome extension to keep Slack active? Not a safe one. The popular stay-active extensions were removed from the Chrome Web Store in 2024, and clones carried malware.

Are Chrome extensions safe on a work computer? Most listed here are from large, known publishers. Check permissions, keep the count low, and follow your company's policy.

Which Chrome extension keeps my screen from turning off? Keep Awake. It keeps the display or the system on, but it does not keep Slack or Teams active.

Do time tracking extensions monitor me? Toggl Track and Clockify record only the timers you start. Employer monitoring software is a separate, installed program.