With many Chrome toolbar buttons available, finding the perfect setup can be overwhelming. I’ve settled on five essential buttons that genuinely boost my productivity. These aren’t just random picks—they’re the buttons I actually click multiple times a day and would immediately miss if they disappeared.
5
Password Manager
While I’ve always valued quick access to my passwords, Google’s customizable toolbar makes it even easier to keep the password manager just a click away.
The Google Password Manager button is, hands down, my first pick for any toolbar setup. Throughout my workday, I constantly log into different sites and services, and having instant access to my saved credentials saves me time.
Although Proton Pass is my favorite password manager, Google’s built-in solution works best with Chrome’s ecosystem, especially if you periodically sync both of them.
It eliminates the need for the usual way of viewing Google Chrome’s saved passwords through the Chrome menu when you need to retrieve, update, or view a password. Here’s how to add the Password Manager button (or any other button) to your Chrome toolbar:
- At the top of your browser, select the Chrome menu (three dots) and go to More Tools.
- Click Customize Chrome and select Toolbar from the side panel that appears and browse through available toolbar buttons.
- Locate Google Password Manager and toggle it on.
- The button will immediately appear in your toolbar at the top-right, ready for use.
Just remember to avoid these mistakes when setting up a password manager to ensure your login information stays secure while remaining accessible.
4
Search With Google Lens
I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen something interesting online and wanted to know more about it. That’s where the Google Lens toolbar button comes in handy for the best browsing experience.
Previously, you had to right-click a webpage and select Google Lens from the context menu—an extra step for using the feature. Now, with direct toolbar access, I find myself using Lens more for everything from identifying products to translating text.
Google Lens translates text on the spot. As image recognition advances, Google has expanded its capabilities to make it an AI-powered in-store shopping assistant with recent updates.
The visual search technology consistently impresses me with its accuracy, often finding exact matches for obscure items I’d otherwise spend ages hunting down manually. This button could earn a permanent spot on the Chrome toolbar for someone who researches products and visual content regularly.
Related
How to Quickly View and Delete Your Google Lens History
Looking to check out what you’ve scanned through Google Lens before? Here’s how you can quickly view or delete your history.
3
Reading Mode
You might want to add Chrome’s Reading Mode button to the toolbar if you’ve ever been frustrated by cluttered web pages with flashy ads, autoplay videos, and distracting sidebars.
What I love most about Reading Mode is how it removes unnecessary clutter. Once you activate it, Chrome removes the page’s visual noise while preserving all the important content—images, headings, and text—in a neatly formatted layout that’s more pleasant to read.
The feature improves focus when consuming long-form content. Instead of looking at aggressive design elements, click the Reading Mode button and enjoy a more book-like experience. For more details about it, check out our guide on how Chrome’s Reading Mode makes the web easier to read.
You’d especially appreciate Reading Mode during late-night browsing sessions when bright backgrounds strain your eyes.
2
Send to Your Devices
What makes this feature so powerful is its simplicity. With this feature, you can instantly send any webpage you view to your other devices. For example, if you’re researching a recipe on your laptop but heading to the kitchen. You can send it to your tablet. Found something interesting on your desktop but need to head out? It’s on your phone before you reach the door.
That’s why the “Send to Your Devices” button has earned a permanent spot on my Chrome toolbar. The button displays a list of all my connected devices, letting me choose exactly where to send the page.
You must be signed in with the same Google account on all devices for this feature to work properly.
I’ve found this particularly useful for separating work and leisure browsing. Rather than leaving dozens of tabs open, I can send personal articles to my home devices and keep my work browser clutter-free. For someone constantly switching between screens, this button can save minutes of searching and typing every single day.
1
Reading List
This button makes the articles I want to revisit later easily accessible. Unlike bookmarks that tend to become a disorganized mess of links I’ll never touch again, the Reading List provides an easy, temporary holding space for content I genuinely plan to read.
It creates a dedicated space separate from the permanent bookmarks. When I find an interesting article from great places worth reading on the web but don’t have time to dive in immediately, one click adds it to my Reading List for easy access later.
Not everyone loves this feature, though. If you find it cluttering your interface, you can remove the Reading List from Google Chrome altogether. For me, however, it’s become a part of my information management system.
While these five buttons form my must-have toolbar setup, Chrome’s new customization options mean you can create a completely personalized browsing experience. Take a few minutes to experiment with different configurations and find what works best for your specific needs.
