The best Chrome extensions for students

With NexoPad you take notes without leaving your browser. Press Alt+Q to open the Notebook, create a folder for each subject and write one note per unit. If you're following a video lecture, open the note as a floating Post-it and write next to the video, without switching tabs.

When a paragraph is useful for an assignment, select it and press Alt+C: it's saved in the ✂️ Clips folder with the page's title and link, so you'll always know where it came from. Add a reminder to the note so you review it (it can repeat every week) and save each course's links in folders: the online portal, the syllabus, the recordings. Before the exam, press Ctrl+K on any website and type a word to find your notes.

For the things you type over and over, you have text shortcuts: for example, /officehours for the email asking a teacher for a meeting, or /ref to write a reference in the format your class uses. NexoPad asks for the details that change, like the subject, the date or the author, and writes the full text.

Pros: notes, clips with their source, reminders, links and shortcuts in one extension, on Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera and Brave. Cons: there's no mobile app, it doesn't look up a source's details or build your bibliography like Zotero (you set up the shortcut's format yourself), and the free plan falls short for a whole course: 15 notes (clips count), 20 clips a month and 2 folders of your own besides General. More ideas in how to take notes from online classes and the complete guide to taking and organizing notes in your browser.

Zotero is a free, open-source reference manager. With its extension, Zotero Connector, you save the article, book or page you're viewing in one click, with its author, title and date. Then, from Zotero, you create your bibliography in whatever style you're asked for, such as APA or MLA.

It works best alongside the Zotero app on your computer, although it can also save straight to your online library on zotero.org. It works in Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

Pros: free, very complete and saves you a lot of work on your bibliography. Cons: it takes a little while to learn, and you get 300 MB free to sync files (like PDFs); if you need more space, it's paid.

Grammarly fixes spelling, grammar and punctuation as you type in your browser: in Google Docs, in your email or on your course forum. Since 2025 it also corrects Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese, and in 2026 it added 17 more languages in beta, on the free plan too.

Use it to check what you write, not to write for you: many schools have rules about using AI in assignments. And before you pay, ask your university: some offer Grammarly to their students through a campus license.

Pros: the free plan already fixes mistakes in several languages. Cons: the most advanced features are on the Pro plan, and in the beta languages it only fixes mistakes for now, with no style suggestions. If you're looking for other options, see our Grammarly alternatives.

This is Google's official dictionary extension. Double-click a word and you'll see its definition in a small bubble, without leaving the page. If the word is in another language, it translates it into yours.

If you turn it on, it keeps a history of the words you look up, and you can download it to review vocabulary.

Pros: free, simple and very handy for reading articles in other languages. Cons: it's made for single words and short phrases; to translate a whole page, use the translator built into Chrome.

Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader reads the page's text out loud, in more than 40 languages. If you select a passage, it reads only that passage. It also reads PDFs and Google Docs, and you can change the voice and the speed.

It's useful for reviewing by listening, for checking an essay by hearing how it sounds, or for resting your eyes after hours in front of a screen.

Pros: free with your browser's voices. Cons: the most natural cloud voices may be paid or need your own key. Watch out: there are other extensions with similar names; look for the one by LSD Software.

If your readings come as PDFs, the Adobe Acrobat extension opens them in Chrome with its tools. You can highlight, add comments and sticky notes, and fill in and sign forms, all for free.

If your school or university works with Kami, use that instead: it's a platform for doing and handing in assignments on PDFs and documents with your teachers, and its extension is still being updated in 2026.

Pros: highlighting and commenting on PDFs is free and easy. Cons: converting to Word, compressing or merging PDFs are paid tools.

LeechBlock NG blocks the sites that distract you, like social media or YouTube, at the times you choose, or gives you a daily time limit. You can create up to 30 groups of sites, each with its own schedule.

It has a lockdown mode that blocks right away for a set time, and you can protect its settings with a password so you don't turn it off in a weak moment. It's also available for Firefox.

Pros: free, open source and very flexible. Cons: it has so many options that setting it up the first time takes a while.

Todoist is a to-do list. With its extension you add an assignment or an exam from any page, or save the page you're viewing as a task, without leaving it. You see your list in the browser and check things off as you finish them.

Pros: the free plan includes up to 5 personal projects (for example, one per subject) and task reminders. Cons: if you have more subjects, you'll need to group them or move to a paid plan.

Dark Reader turns any website dark, even the ones that don't have a dark mode. You can adjust the brightness, contrast and font, and turn it on or off for each site.

Pros: free and very comfortable for studying at night. Cons: it changes the colors of every page, so if one looks odd, turn it off just for that site.