How-tos

7 Google Meet Chrome extensions you can try now!


The last couple of months has seen a meteoric increase in the demand for video conferencing and collaboration services and one service that has pulled ranks above the rest would be Google Meet.

Not only does the service offer basic functionalities like video and audio calling, grid view, and sharing screens, Google’s collaboration tool also packs some special features like Noise cancellation, low-light mode, better security, and integration with other Google services like Gmail.

However, one functionality that many users fail to notice is that you can Google Meet on PC only on the web. Because of this, you can tweak the service according to your liking using tools on your web browser, which for many users will be Google Chrome.

Fortunately for you, several developers have created extensions for Google Meet to be used on Chrome, some that could make Meet as good as Zoom.

Common Google Meet problems and solutions

In this post, we will explain the best and most useful Google Meet Chrome extensions that you can use to make the most of Google Meet.

Google Meet Grid View

By default, Google lets you view up to 16 people during a meeting session on Meet. For those of you who wish to view more participants in a meeting, similar to what Zoom offers, you can use the Google Meet Grid View extension on Chrome to see everyone in your group meeting.

The extension enables a grid layout on the calling screen with equal-sized rectangular boxes, thus making room for you to see as many people as you can during a video conference. In addition to showing more participants’ video feed, you can use this extension to show your own video, highlight the participant who’s actively speaking, and also hide those who have their video feed turned OFF.

Get Google Meet Grid View

Nod – Reactions for Google Meet

Google meet lets you mute other participants in a meeting so that you can listen to the current speaker attentively. However, if you want to pitch in at a given time, there’s no way to express yourself to the host inside the service. Enter Nod – Reactions for Google Meet. When you enable Nod, you will be able to ‘raise your hand’ (figuratively) to let the host know that you want to speak. In addition to hand raise, you can also send a bunch of other reactions to show up on the meeting screen like ‘thumbs up’, ‘hand clap’, ‘laugh’, ‘hmm’, and ‘wow’.

Get Nod – Reactions for Google Meet

Visual Effects for Google Meet

Unlike Zoom, Google Meet doesn’t offer an option to have virtual backgrounds during meetings. Although you can use Snap Camera to change the look of your surroundings, there’s still no neat way to change your background. With the Visual Effects for Google Meet extension, you can apply different effects to your background like Bubbles, Cube, Sunglasses, Screen Text, Freeze, Contrast, Inverse, Pixelate, Blur, and Green Screen.

For now, the extension will only work with a physical green screen but the developer has revealed that this will be fixed with a future update.

Get Visual Effects for Google Meet

Meet Attendance

Google Meet lets you host up to 250 participants in a single call and with so many members on board, it might be difficult to discuss all the proceedings of the meeting and also check who all were actually present during the session. The Meet Attendance extension on Chrome does exactly that, offering a means to take attendance during a Meet session.

When enabled, the feature shows up next to the ‘People’ tab and from there, you can create a new sheet/spreadsheet. The extension will then add who’s entering the meeting and when alongside meeting URL.

Get Meet Attendance

Google Meet Push To Talk

Not all organizations or groups use the same way of communication. For instance, classrooms will only require audio input from a student when they want to ask a query. The Google Meet Push To Talk extension works in a similar fashion as that of a walkie talkie, where you would have to press the Space key on the keyboard to speak up, and during the rest of the time, your mic will remain muted.

The extension makes sure that participants do not need to click a bunch of buttons to mute and unmute themselves. You can also personalize which key you want to use as your hotkey to ‘push to talk’ during a meeting session.

Get Google Meet Push To Talk

Tactiq Pins for Google Meet

When a meeting session is on, you will be required to listen in on the conversation and give your input when the time comes. But the real problem starts when the meeting ends and you want to recapture all the points that you discussed. While you can record video sessions of your team, you might not want to sit through the entire recording to get a gist of all that was talked about.

This is where the Tactiq Pins for Google Meet extension for Chrome comes in. You can use this extension to save live transcriptions and read them in real-time. You can pin important conversations so that you can find them at a later time and also save transcripts in your clipboard, as TXT files, on Tactiq, or upload them to Google Drive.

Get Tactiq Pins for Google Meet

Google Meet Classroom Extension

This Google Chrome extension brings the whiteboard functionality to Google Meet on each of the participants’ screen with the extension installed. Once enabled, users will see a Whiteboard button on the calling screen that will open a whiteboard that’s overlaid on the screen. You can then draw, type, or calculate to show it to other users, although others won’t be able to interact on the same board.

Get Google Meet Classroom Extension


Will you use any of the Google Meet Chrome extensions listed in this post? Which one do you think is the most useful of the lot? Let us know in the comments section. 

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