Out of the box, ChromeOS is one of the most efficient operating systems on the market. One reason is the OS's simplicity. Another reason is that it was designed from the ground up to be as easy to use as possible. To achieve that goal, developers have incorporated a number of features that make navigating the UI incredibly easy.

In this article, I would like to introduce five simple tips to make working with the ChromeOS platform faster and easier.

All of these tips use the functions that are installed as standard in the system, so there is no need to install anything and only minimal configuration is required.

All you need is to understand how to use these magical functions. This article explains the procedure.

5 tips to speed up operations and streamline user experience on ChromeOS

Things necessary

All you need is a Chromebook running the latest version of ChromeOS. For the purposes of this article, I'll be using ChromeOS version 106.0.5249.12, but these features should work just fine on older versions. That said, ChromeOS should always be updated regularly (to ensure you have the latest security and features).

"Then, let me give you some concrete hints."

1. Enable tap to click

You may notice that by default, the touchpad does not have tap-to-click enabled. It may seem trivial, but pushing down on the touchpad to click is a waste of time and effort. Thankfully, enabling tap-to-click is pretty easy. Let's take a look at the specific steps. Open the Settings app (either from the desktop menu or the gear icon in the system tray popup) and go to Device > Touchpad. From that window, tap the Enable tap-to-click on/off slider and you're good to go. Close the Settings window and enjoy a more efficient tapping method to your heart's content.


Enable tap to click on ChromeOS.

2. Use touchpad gestures

ChromeOS provides some very useful touchpad gestures to take advantage of. For example :

  • Swipe up with three fingers to see all open windows.
  • Swipe down with three fingers to close the overview (shows all open windows).
  • Swipe left or right with two fingers to go to the previous or next page (or screen).
  • Move the mouse cursor to the tab bar and swipe with three fingers to switch tabs.
  • Hover over the shelf and swipe up.
  • Swipe left or right with four fingers to switch workspaces.
3. Zoom in

You can easily change the display resolution (enlarge or reduce the display) using the following three keyboard shortcuts.
  • CTRL+SHIFT++ increases the size of everything on the desktop.
  • "CTRL" + "Shift" + "-" reduces the size of everything on the desktop.
  • "CTRL" + "Shift" + "0" resets the resolution to default.
4. View recently copied items to clipboard

I use the OS clipboard a lot. Much more use the ability to use what has been copied to the clipboard in the past. Believe it or not, ChromeOS comes standard with this feature. To view the contents of the clipboard, hold down the "Search" button (also known as the "Everything" button) on your keyboard and press "V". A new popup window should appear. After clicking on any clipboard item, you can use the normal CTRL+V keyboard shortcut to paste the contents of that item.
Access recently copied items to the ChromeOS clipboard.

5. Pin apps to shelves

If you have apps (or web apps) that you open frequently, pin them to a shelf so you don't have to open the desktop launcher to find them. To pin an app to the shelf, find the app in your desktop launcher, right-click the icon, and select "Pin to shelf." Now you can access that app launcher directly from the shelf and launch it more efficiently.
Pin apps to the ChromeOS shelf.

ChromeOS is a simple and wonderful platform to begin with, but these five tips should go a long way in making your ChromeOS experience much more efficient.