Ask college students which computer tools they use to boost productivity, and there’s a good chance they’re not using any productivity apps. Afterall, it’s hard enough to keep up with communication apps, school work, and group projects.
The Chrome Web Store should be any college student’s first stop if you’re looking to make life easier. You can download dozens of tools from our growing library of Chrome extensions—and all of them are designed to help you work more productively, so you can save more time to focus on your work.
The following are 5 apps that will especially benefit university and college students:
Let’s take a closer look at each one:
1. Gmail Screenshot
If you need a way to quickly grab a screenshot and share it, Gmail Screenshot is the extension for you.
Like other screenshot tools, it allows you to grab either the entire screen or just a specific area. But our Gmail Screenshot extension goes a lot further, too. You can:
- Write text over the screenshot and annotate it
- Add arrows and other graphics like rectangular boxes and lines
- Pixelate sensitive information if needed
- Capture specific pages in an application
- Delay your screenshot to capture a menu when your cursor hovers above it
- Create a link to your image to share it via email and other text apps
You’ll love using Gmail Screenshot to capture your screen, mark up the image, and send it to your professor or fellow classmates and group project members—all without having to save anything to your hard drive!
2. Share Email as Link
If you’ve ever had to reference an old email before, you probably know how clunky the process is. You have to find the email (which is sometimes easier said than done!), hit the forward button, then type out your contact names, and finally send it.
Wouldn’t it be better if you could just create a quick link to the email and send that link via Slack, Skype, GitHub, Facebook, WhatsApp, or other messenger?
Well, now you can, thanks to our handy Share Email as Link extension for Gmail!
What’s more, you can even add links to multiple emails within a single email message if you need to reference more than one previous conversation. This way, your text won’t be cluttered with copy-pasted messages, and you can easily add your own commentary about each one. It’s elegantly simple.
3. Gmail Label and Email Sharing
Hate group projects? Or maybe you enjoy them—but you’d love a way to collaborate more easily and effectively as a team…
Having to send so many emails and share attachments with team members can quickly become overwhelming and hard to keep track of.
That’s why we created the Gmail Label and Email Sharing extension. By quickly dropping all related emails under a single label to be shared with your classmates, everyone will have access to the same conversations. It works just like sharing folders in Google Drive—fast and effortless.
With Gmail Label and Email Sharing, you can enjoy real-time team collaboration and chat, share emails and attachments—even email drafts!—with your classmates, assign individual tasks, and track project status.
4. Gmail SMS Alerts
Even when you’re rushing to complete that last-minute project, you’ll probably still find yourself out and about on occasion, spending time with friends, or maybe just grabbing a quick nap.
But you’ll still need to keep abreast of any school-related developments. With our Gmail SMS Alerts extension, you’ll never have to worry about missing an important email again!
The extension sends an SMS text alert to your phone reminding you to check your inbox the moment you receive any critical messages.
Gmail SMS Alerts can be set for individual email addresses, emails with specific keywords, or specific sent emails that you’re waiting for a reply to.
Find out more here. Also, keep in mind that even though the extension is 100% free to use, carrier charges may apply for text messages, according to your phone plan.
5. Multi Email Forward for Gmail
Let’s imagine for a second that you do somehow make it through school. After graduation, you may decide to switch to a new email account and start fresh—maybe create a more professional email address as you begin your job search…
But you probably don’t want to lose access to all of your old emails.
The solution? Download our free Gmail Multi Email Forward extension and you can forward a bunch of emails from Gmail to any email account, all at the same time!
Simply select the messages you want to export and send them over all at once.
To make things even easier, you don’t have to worry about keeping your Gmail open during the forwarding process. You can log out of your account, close your browser, or even shut down your PC—and your emails will still forward as if you were doing it manually one at a time.
College students are faced with so much work, often taking on a course load of over 5 courses per semester! Staying organized is the easiest way to ensure that you keep your grades high, and your schedule under control. Go ahead and give them a shot above.