What are Chrome extensions, and why do we need them? Each of these extensions is unique, and it can do different things. But the primary goal of all of them is to do your work easier. You don’t have to remember the shortcuts. Or search for tutorials on YouTube, “How to do this and that.” You only have to download Chrome extensions, you can complete some tasks with just one click.
What are Chrome Extensions?
Chrome extensions have become an integral part of my design workflow. Every work-from-home professional should know about a lot of time-saving and productivity-boosting extensions. Also, provide additional functionality to a great browser, Google Chrome. In this post, I have listed some of the best Chrome extensions for designers who want to maximize productivity.
Here are the Must Have Chrome Extensions For Designers
1. ColorZilla
Designers can select colors on any website with ColorZilla, a browser extension. It adds a color picker to your browser, allowing you to quickly choose any color from the web. It can help select and copy the exact color of elements on a page or create and test schemes for a design project. You can also choose from preset color schemes like grayscale and inverted colors. These are helpful for quickly finding matching shades in a design scheme.
2. Dark Reader
Dark Reader is a must-have for designers and developers who spend a lot of time online. For designers, one of the most important things you can do is to protect your eyes from the glare of your computer screen. Computer users must use tools that protect their eyes if they spend a lot of time looking at screens. Additionally, it blocks social media buttons and other distractions, making it hard to concentrate on your work. On top of that, it can reduce eye strain and increase productivity.
3. SVG Grabber
SVG Grabber is a helpful Chrome extension for designers. This copy vector shapes from web pages easily. It is a handy tool for designers as it helps them to save time and create vector graphics more efficiently. It also works with images such as charts, graphs, logos, etc.
4. Window Resizer
Window Resizer is a handy Chrome extension for designers. Resizing web pages according to your needs is the primary purpose of this tool. You can easily resize the browser window and select the exact size you want. This extension also lets you change every page’s zoom level.
5. Color Picker
Color Picker is one of the most popular Chrome extensions for designers. This extension allows you to pick any color from any website. Additionally, it has several other features, including loading a color scheme based on color and picking colors based on HEX codes. Also, it has RGB values or CSS classes. It is an excellent tool for designers who need to find the exact color they want to use in their designs.
6. Whatfont
Google Chrome’s Whatfont extension identifies fonts. It can use for many purposes, but it was created specifically for designers. It is easy to use and can save time finding the perfect font for your project. The first thing you will notice about Whatfont is how fast it works. In less than one second, you will see what font you use on any website. There is also the option to search by keywords. You can explore such as “sans-serif” or “serif,” so you don’t have to guess what typeface is present.
7. CSS Pepper
CSS Pepper is a Chrome extension that makes CSS development easier. The extension adds a pepper icon to the CSS property you are currently editing. Clicking on this icon will display all possible values for the property and allow you to copy them to your clipboard. This tool offers more benefits than just saving time and effort. It is when editing code because it will enable you to search for all possible CSS property values. It saves you from typing long strings of code or searching through documentation pages whenever you want to change something small in your code (such as color or font size).
8. Eagle
The Eagle Chrome Extension is an essential tool for designers. It allows you to search for any image on the web. Also, retrieve the color information from the image. The extension is straightforward to use. You need to drag and drop a shot into the browser window. Then, you will get a list of all colors found in this image with their hexadecimal codes.
9. Mobile Simulator
The Mobile Simulator Chrome extension is a must-have tool for any designer. It enables you to preview how your website will look on different mobile devices without downloading an app or visiting your site on a mobile device. Mobile Simulator’s main feature is its ability to emulate mobile devices. Additionally, it helps you test your websites and web apps. You can choose from hundreds of different devices and see how your designs will look on each one.
10. Page Ruler Redux
This extension is helpful for web designers and developers because it saves them time and money by not having to hire an outside agency. They can use Page Ruler Redux to find out how much space their website needs. Also, to determine how many pixels are required for text, etc. In other words, they can do all the calculations themselves without paying someone else to do it for them.
11. Image Downloader
Image Downloader is perfect for saving photos, graphics, and screenshots in just one click. The extension allows users to select an entire webpage or a specific area of interest and choose their preferred file type. They can even preview the image before downloading it. The tool allows you to save multiple images simultaneously, which can be helpful when working with large-scale projects.
12. Fonts Ninja
Fonts Ninja is a Chrome extension allowing you to preview your browser’s fonts. It loads a sample image (a bitmap) for each font. You can then drag it around and resize it to see how it looks in different sizes. It is advantageous if you’re trying to find a font that matches another size, style, or color.
13. Loom
Loom is an easy way to record, collaborate and create GIFs. It’s perfect for work-from-home professionals who want to share their ideas with others in real-time. The tool allows you to take screenshots, record your screen with voiceover, and share videos on YouTube. Also, it collaborates with other users by adding annotations on top of your work. You can also use Loom’s built-in GIF creator. It is to turn any video into an animated GIF that can share on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
14. Muzli
Muzli is a Chrome extension that collects the best design resources across the web. It’s a great way to find inspiration and keep up with what’s trending in the design world. The best part about Muzli is that it makes it easy to share your favorite resources. It is with others through the app. You can create a new collection, add design elements, write about them, and then share it with other designers.
15. Toybox
Toybox is a tool to help designers and developers create interactive prototypes, wireframes, and low-fidelity user flows. It’s a Chrome extension that lets you create a high-fidelity prototype in minutes without coding or installing anything. Toybox is a must-have extension for designers because it’s super simple and helps you access any element on the web. An excellent tool for designers because it allows you to view the source code of any website. It means that you can see exactly how the site is built, which can be helpful when trying to understand how other sites work.
16. Wappalyzer
Wappalyzer is a free browser extension that helps determine a website’s technologies. It examines any web page’s source code. Also, it tells you what kind of technology you use to create it. It can be beneficial when you have to deal with a new client. Who have already launched their website, but you have yet to learn about it.
17. Grid Overlay
Grid Overlay is a must-have tool for designers. It helps you to create, export, and share your grids easily. An extension is an excellent tool for creating prototypes and checking how layouts will look on different devices. It’s a straightforward tool that doesn’t require coding skills or other knowledge. It is highly recommended for anyone working with grids in their projects.
18. Squint
A squint is an excellent tool for designers to hide or remove selected elements on a page. It’s beneficial when you want a better sense of the overall layout. It can be challenging with lots of distracting elements on your screen. The chrome extension is advantageous when you want to see how a design will look without a component. Choose the parts you want to hide and click “Hide.” The features will be removed from view but not from their original positions on the page. To bring them back up, click “Unhide.”
19. UX Check
UX Check is a handy Chrome extension for designers. It’s a heuristic evaluation tool that allows you to see a website’s usability issues instantly without going through the entire process of conducting a full user test. The tool is handy when working on a new design and ensuring everything is working before users see it. You can also use it to evaluate an existing structure and provide that no significant issues need fixing.
20. Site Palette
Site Palette is a Chrome extension that can help you generate color palettes based on the website’s coding. It’s beneficial for designers and developers to get ideas for new projects. Site Palette makes it easy for designers to generate color palettes from any site. It can also share your new palette’s URL with your friends and colleagues by creating shareable links.
21. Hex Color Picker
Despite its simplicity, Hex Color Picker is a powerful and easy-to-use color picker tool. This extension lets you pick colors from any website. Also, save them for later use in Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, or any other design software. It also provides information about the hexadecimal value and RGB color code of any color on the selected site.
The Chrome browser extensions are powerful tools for designers and work-from-home professionals since they simplify your workflow. Chrome extensions offer numerous benefits. You won’t need to be in the same network as your computer to control it. The listed ones are an excellent place to start, and we recommend installing one on your machine.
When choosing the right Chrome extension for your workflow, there are many things to consider. With these browser extensions, however, you’ll have many features with improved efficiency and design quality at your disposal. And best of all? These are free and easy to install, so check them out!
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