One of the main appeals of Chromebooks There’s its simplicity: you essentially have a row of browser tabs, web apps running, with minimal background activity going on and everything instantly saved and synced to the cloud.
As Chromebooks have evolved, however, they’ve added more to this basic Chrome foundation. They can Now run Android appsFor example, and they actually come with some pre-installed apps that are really useful. Open the launcher (Google icon, bottom left) to see what’s available.
These are the best built-in apps you’ll get right now if you buy a new Chromebook Plus model—it’s a slightly higher spec range, capable of supporting all Gemini AI extracted That Google has been pushing out in recent years.
recorder
Recorder offers easy recording and transcription.
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This is probably my favorite of the built-in ChromeOS apps. It’s a powerful voice recorder and transcription tool, similar to the recorder on the Pixel phone, and it’s really easy to use: click the record button, start speaking, and you’re up and running.
You’ll need to download some additional AI models to your Chromebook, but once you do, you can instantly transcribe speech to text and even get AI-powered summaries and titles for your clips.
What’s more, if you want the app will recognize different speakers and apply appropriate labels based on voice speech patterns and styles. All your recordings can be easily accessed within the app, and shared elsewhere when needed.
Screencast
Screencast lets you save and share screen recordings.
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Screencast is a great tool for screen recording and you can even choose to include your webcam video and microphone audio as needed. Whatever you need to share from your Chromebook display, Screencast enables you to do it.
Recording is straightforward, and is handled by icons on the shelf at the bottom of the interface—there are also annotation tools if you need to draw on the screen. Any speech is automatically transcribed for you when you’re done.
There are also some basic editing tools included, so you can trim unnecessary parts of your presentation or tutorial (or whatever). You can also share your screencast with others through customized links.
text
Text is a basic text editor and works offline.
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You don’t always want to create a full Google Doc or even a Google Keep note to jot down ideas, and that’s where Text comes in: it’s a basic, native text editor, equivalent to Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on macOS.
Behind the simple interface, here are some handy features. You get syntax highlighting for different programming languages, configurable font and tab sizes, and an easy search function. You also have light and dark modes to choose from.
What do you think so far?
Importantly, it can work completely offline, so it’s ideal for distraction-free writing or coding when you don’t want to open a dozen browser tabs (or if you lose WiFi signal and need to remember something quickly).
Key shortcuts
Key Shortcuts lets you edit and view keyboard shortcuts.
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Keyboard shortcuts are one of the best productivity hacks for getting more done in less time, and Key Shortcuts lets you see all the shortcuts available on ChromeOS—from opening notifications to changing screen zoom.
This app is more than just a list of shortcuts, though: you can actually customize many of the shortcuts yourself, via the pencil icon that appears on the right when you hover the cursor. Don’t like the full-screen screenshot shortcut? replace it.
You’ll be limited in terms of certain keypresses and dedicated keys (for example, for volume) available on your particular Chromebook model, but key shortcuts give you plenty of flexibility as well as an easy reference.
Gallery
Gallery lets you work with images, videos, audios and PDFs.
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Last but certainly not least, we have the excellent Gallery app. This is where you can edit images and PDFs, watch videos and listen to audio. Each of the various components is relatively basic, but they all work well, and all work offline, too.
With an image editor, for example, you can crop, rotate, and resize pictures, as well as annotate with different pen sizes, styles, and colors. Basic adjustments for exposure, contrast, and saturation are also available.
The PDF editor covers some of the main operations you’ll want to perform on documents like this: adding text, annotating pages, and inserting your signature. You can also get AI summaries of PDF documents.
