Google Meet is a simple and clean video conference app from Google. It has a lot of unique features like live captions, joining the meeting without the internet, etc. However, it does miss out on a few features that can improve the usability of Google Meet. Nonetheless, most of these features can be added to Google Meet with the help of Chrome Extensions. As you basically add only the features you need, you can customize Google Meet thoroughly. Let’s check out some Chrome Extensions for Google Meet.
Best Chrome Extensions for the Google Meet
1. Google Meet Enhancement suite
This is a multi-purpose chrome extension that adds multiple features such as the push to talk, shortcut to end the meet, skipping the join screen, automatically switching on few features like live captions, etc. Simply enable the feature from the Extension to use it.
Among all of them, I like Quick Leave and Auto-Join features. Pressing shift+K ends the meeting and auto-join feature skips the join screen. Even more features like dark mode, picture-in-picture view would be coming to this extension in the future. The only caveat being, some of these shortcuts even work in the chat, so in case you are trying to press Shift+K in the chat, you will instantly leave the meet and there is no way to configure shortcuts on your own.
Install Google Meet Enhancement Suite
2. Meet Attendance
An attendance extension is something that can be useful for all the teachers out there. Among all the attendance extensions, Meet Attendance is something that is way cleaner and efficient. All you need to do is just add the extension to your browser and that’s it. Whenever you start a meet, it will create a spreadsheet and note down all the names of the people who have attended the meeting. It also notes down the time they joined and the time left out. So you don’t need to think about anything while running the class. You can access the spreadsheet anytime from the option in the people’s tab. You can even toggle off the automation and create a spreadsheet on your own right from the Google Meet if you want.
Install Meet Attendance
3. Nod Chrome Extension
This is another extension useful for online classes. To reduce the noise, you might need to mute everyone in the Meet. But if any of the students wanna talk to you, they cannot respond. Nod Chrome Extensions provide emoji-based interaction. It doesn’t provide many emojis but provides you a few useful ones like raising the hand, agreement, and disagreement, clap, goodbye, etc.
The most important one is raising the hand so that you can unmute them to speak. This creates a distraction-free class and also provides the facility for the people to respond without causing any distractions.
Install Nod Extension
4. Google Meet Transcribe
Google Meet has a Live captions feature that isn’t available on any Video Conference service. This extension uses the functionality and takes it to a whole new level by taking notes of all those captions. It automatically saves them as a Google Doc file in your Google Drive.
However, It doesn’t provide an option for you to configure and you cannot stop the transcribe for any meeting. You can only delete it later.
Install Google Meet Transcribe
5. Google Meet Grid View
By default, the Grid view of the Google Meet supports only 16 people. It might be good enough for most scenarios. But if you wanted to take a look at all the people in the meet or if you are a teacher, using Google Meet Grid View Chrome Extension helps you.
The best part is, you have a lot of options to tweak from enabling grid view by default to resizing the toolbar when the grid view is enabled. You can access all these settings right inside the meet in the top-right corner.
Install Google Meet Grid View
6. Google Meet Call Timer
You can take advantage of Google Meet Call Timer Chrome Extension if you are using Google Meet from any chromium-based browser. Just install the extension and attend the Google Meet. You can set the timer inside the Meet window and it looks clean, minimal, and perfectly adjusts to the Google Meet design style.
Anyhow, this timer can be only seen by you, and it does not automatically close the call. It makes a small beep sound and shows the timer in the red text indicating that your time is completed. If you are on a tight schedule or have some work, you can use this extension as a remainder. Nonetheless, just knowing how much time you have been on the call is just a basic feature for every video conference app.
Install Google Meet Call Timer
7. Virtual Background
This is a feature where you can change the background just like on the Zoom meetings. If you are missing this feature on the meet, the close you can get is from this Virtual background extensions. It is nowhere near perfect, but somehow just gets the work done. And you also cannot use your own images, you can just use the 10 images provided by the extension.
Install Virtual Background
Final Words
There are few more extensions like Party button which gives a party popper animation but only visible to the one who installed the extension. Tactiq pins for Google Meet to save live captions, etc. Anyhow, my favorite is the enhancement suite, what’s yours? Let me know in the comments section.
Related: Zoom Cloud Meetings vs Google Meet: Best Choice For You?
