Browser Bits

Chrome extension tools: capture, convert, copy and export

This is the drawer of single-job utilities: pull a color off a page, make a QR code, convert a unit, save a set of images, get a chat thread or a blog post out as a file. Most of them replace something you'd otherwise do by hand or by pasting into a random website.

14 of 29 are live on a store.

What to look for

Match the site list against the job

Several tools here only ever touch one site, and their manifests say so: Velog Cleaner is limited to velog.io, YouTube Bookmark to youtube.com, Review Signal to coupang.com. When something that works on a single site asks for access to all sites at install, that gap is the first thing to ask about.

With an exporter, find out where the file is built

The chat and media exporters in this category — Perplexity Exporter, Grok Exporter, Suno Downloader, the Naver image saver — declare only the downloads permission and write a file from the page you already have open. If an exporter instead wants a sign-in or an API key, your content is travelling through someone's server on the way to your disk.

Clipboard history keeps a copy of everything you copied

Clipboard History needs clipboardRead, which is exactly as broad as it sounds: it can see the value you copied out of a password manager as easily as a URL. Before installing anything in that shape, check that you can clear the history and pause capture, and treat the stored list the way you'd treat a plain text file of the same content.

Overlay tools stop at the browser's own pages

Anything that draws on a page — a color picker, a screenshot tool, find and replace — works by injecting a script, and Chrome blocks that on chrome:// pages, the Web Store, and other extensions' pages. It also means a freshly installed tool does nothing on tabs that were already open until you reload them. Site-specific tools carry a second risk: a redesign of the site can break the selectors they rely on.

Questions people ask

How do I install a Chrome extension?

Open the store listing, press Add to Chrome, and read the permission dialog before confirming — that dialog is the last plain-language summary of what the extension can reach. After it installs, click the puzzle-piece icon in the toolbar and pin the ones you use, since most of these are triggered from their toolbar button.

I installed it and nothing happens. What now?

Reload the tab first. A content script is injected when a page loads, so pages that were already open before the install have nothing running in them. If it still does nothing, check what page you're on: chrome:// pages, the Web Store and PDF viewer are off limits to extensions, and single-site tools do nothing anywhere except their own site.

Do these work in Microsoft Edge, Brave or Whale?

Some are published to Edge Add-ons as well, and each extension's page links to whichever stores it is actually listed on. Other Chromium browsers can usually install from the Chrome Web Store directly, but that's a feature of the browser rather than something the extension controls, so behaviour there isn't guaranteed.

If I uninstall, what happens to my settings and saved items?

They go with it. These tools keep preferences and saved data in chrome.storage on your own machine, and Chrome deletes that storage when the extension is removed. If a tool holds anything you'd miss — a clipboard list, saved bookmarks, notes — export it first, and remember that a second Chrome profile starts out empty.