Chrome’s sidebar apps are the best new productivity feature no one’s talking about

Back in May, Google added a brilliant new feature to Chrome, and almost everyone appears to have missed it.

It’s called the Side Panel API, and it allows Chrome extensions to run as miniature apps in the browser’s sidebar. Several extensions have used this feature to add vertical tabs in Chrome, while other have added things like a ChatGPT sidebar or a persistent scratchpad for notes.

While the Chrome Side Panel itself launched more than a year ago, third-party extensions could make it a lot more useful. Here’s how to take advantage of this new feature, along with some of the best Chrome Side Panel extensions to check out.

Setting up the Chrome Side Panel

To open the Chrome Side Panel, click the box in the browser’s top-right corner, directly to the left of your profile picture.

The Side Panel should slide out from the right side of the screen, showing your reading list by default. If you click the drop-down menu at the top, you can switch between other built-in Side Panel tools such as your bookmarks and a “Journeys” history view. (Google is readying a search sidebar for this menu as well.)

If you’d prefer to move Chrome’s Side Panel to the left side of the screen, you can do by heading to Settings > Appearance and selecting “Show on left.”

Adding Side Panel extensions to Chrome

The real fun with Chrome Side Panels comes from third-party extensions, which expand the sidebar in useful new ways. Just install an extension with Side Panel support, and it should appear automatically in the drop-down menu at the top.

It’s still in the early days for Chrome’s Side Panel API, but here are some standout extensions that are supporting the new feature:

Manganum: This extension adds a collection of tools to the Chrome sidebar, including favorite sites, a tab list, translation, your Google Calendar agenda, and chat windows for either ChatGPT or Google Bard. A $2.50 per month subscription removes ads and lets users customize which tool appears in the sidebar at launch.

ChatGPT Side Panel: This simpler alternative to Manganum performs just one function, which is to make ChatGPT persistently available in Chrome’s sidebar. It works as advertised (though the fact that it creates a line break instead of sending your query when pressing Enter is irksome).

Tab Shelf: One of several extensions that adds vertical tabs to the Chrome Side Panel, Tab Shelf has the slickest layout, with easily accessible buttons for copying, pinning, and muting your tabs. You can also select multiple tabs at once to close them or sort them into groups, and there’s a handy search bar for tracking down tabs you’ve already opened.

TabVertikal: While its presentation isn’t the slickest, TabVertikal has one feature that’s missing from all the other vertical tab extensions: You can select multiple tabs and move them into a separate browser window. For folks who use separate browser windows as an organization tactic, that capability may be nonnegotiable.

Webside: This extension lets you run websites from inside the Chrome Side Panel. It seems to struggle with some sites, but it pairs well with social media feeds such as Instagram or Mastodon.

Bookmark Sidebar: Although Chrome’s Side Panel already has a Bookmarks view built in, this extension goes further with a search function, keyboard navigation, and various sorting options.

Raindrop.io: Raindrop was already an excellent bookmark manager, and its Chrome extension now lets you access your bookmarks directly from the Side Panel. Both the app and extension are free, with an optional $3 per month subscription for extra features such as offline archives and full-text search.

Pomodoro Focus: Of course someone’s already created a Pomodoro timer for Chrome’s Side Panel. Just click the timer, and it’ll alternate between focus sessions and break times. You can also customize the times, all labels for each session, and add simple to-do list items. The persistent countdown clock in the sidebar has a nice way of keeping you focused.

Chrome isn’t alone in embracing the sidebar. Microsoft Edge has its own sidebar in which you can load any webpage, as does Vivaldi with its Web Panels feature. Other browsers are building extensive sidebar functionality—including Arc, SigmaOS, and Sidekick—as a way of standing out from their bigger rivals.

So far, though, Chrome is the only browser that’s extending the sidebar to third-party developers, who can build their own apps inside it. Hopefully, it’s not long before more of those extension makers realize what the Side Panel can accomplish.

Sign up for Jared’s Advisorator newsletter to get new tech tips every Tuesday.