Six Must-Have Productivity Apps For Your Chromebook
Chromebooks have long been viewed as – the last option—when it comes to making a purchase decision. This perception is
However, Google’s vision for Chrome OS has drastically helped the platform grow tremendously thereby improving its offline capabilities with the introduction of the Play Store and Linux container.
If you’re in the market for a lightweight companion for productivity reasons and currently considering buying a Chromebook, here is a list of some of the best all-around productivity apps should consider for your new hardware.
Evernote
If your day to day routine involves a lot of notetaking, you might be disappointed to notice how Chromebooks don’t ship with dedicated note-taking software. A let down to say the least but there are several third-party apps that can the job is done. The most functional among these apps is Evernote.
Not only can it do the basics like note taking, tasks list, achieving, and so much more, Evernote comes with extra bells and whistles like the ability annotate notes, add tags, surf through them, add comments, edit or even export them.
Though Evernote is free, users are allocated 60 megabytes of data a month though this limit can be expanded through one of the pay packages the platforms offer.
StayFocusd
Since Chromebooks are online-centric devices, working on them means you are going to spend huge chunks of your time using the internet. This, however, can also mean timewasting sites like Facebook and YouTube are usually a click of a button away. Time seems to move a lot faster when stalking someone’s profile on Facebook or watching cat videos on YouTube and since being productive means you’d rather not do either, here is a program that promises to help manage online distractions.
Stayfocusd like the name implies is a productivity extension for Google Chrome that will increase yours productively by limiting the amount of time you spend on time-consuming websites like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc.
The app accomplishes this by giving you the ability to allocate time to be spent using social media networks and once your allotted time has been used up, the sites you have blocked will be inaccessible for the entire day.
Type Form Recovery
If you are a writer and occasionally feel the need to write your articles straight within the site you write for(rather than on an outside source like a word processor or markdown editor which is highly recommended) due to time restrictions or pure laziness, then Type Form Recovery is definitely made for you. Built purposely to backup and restore data as you type it in, this could be quite useful for those living in areas where internet is spotty and there are constant outages as it prevents loss of data. Type Form Recovery makes sure that all data is stored locally for privacy reasons.
Additionally, the app allows users to control what sites it is active on and how long it keeps your information.
Slack
Working remotely within a team means that the chance of using Slack to communicate with other members online –since the platform is the best proprietary team collaboration service available anywhere— is pretty high.
With features like persistent chat rooms organized by topic, private groups and direct messaging, Slack offers a unique means to not only easily communicate but share important updates and information with your colleagues.
The program also offers the means to search content that includes previous conversations, files and even other people.
Slack also features emoji buttons that work like Facebook’s reaction button where others can express their reaction to a particular message.
Though the Slack is free with unlimited access to almost all its features, it does come with a premium tier.
Pixlr Editor
If you are into low-level photo editing and do not want break the bank for a full-fledged Photoshop software, then Pixlr Editor is your friend.
With a unique set of tools, Pixlr Editor offers users a unique means of editing pictures without much hassle with features like layers, lasso tool, brush controls, cloning, and even a modest set of filters.
Though a bit heavy on ads since the software is totally free, Pixlr Editor is the perfect Photoshop replacement.
Gmail Offline
Gmail is an integral part of what Chromebooks are and if you already have a chrome device, then there is a big chance you are using it in conjunction with a Gmail account.
If you are someone always on the road where there is a likelihood of not having access to an internet connection, then Gmail offline is a great way to catch on some of your emails.
This is made possible by using a cached version of your inbox data allowing you to respond to emails you might not have a chance to respond to while online. Everything that is typed is automatically synchronized immediately there.
This isn’t a comprehensive list, however, these tools should help empower or kick-start your Chrome OS journey. Have you had any chance with the aforementioned tools? Let us know in the comments.
