Chrome Extension Managers: The Best Extensions and How to Use Them

Google Chrome is undoubtedly the most popular web browser among the masses, and chances are, you are also one of its many users. Aside from its carriage of Google and super-fast performance, what makes Chrome such an enticing choice is its extensive suite of extensions and add-ons; needless to say, the Chromium codebase that powers other popular browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Vivaldi.

With tens of thousands of extensions spread across various categories, it can be challenging to find out the best Google Chrome extensions and manage them individually. Fortunately, there are extension managers — essentially extensions — that help you in managing your extensions quite effortlessly.

In this guide, we will check out some of the best Chrome extension managers, along with steps to using one of these popular extensions.

Why Do You Need an Extension Manager

Given the fact that you will continue installing new extensions on your browser, managing them can turn into a tedious task over time. Although you can use the built-in extension manager to do this on Chrome (or any other Chromium-based browser), the functionality offered is quite limited. And so, your best bet is to use a good extension manager: one that will provide you insights into the requested permissions for each extension, allow you to enable/disable/delete extensions easily and let you organize your extensions better.

Best Chrome Extension Managers

There are many extension managers available on the Chrome Web Store. While some of these are minimal and limited in functionality, others offer a wide range of features to put you in complete control over your browser extensions.

1. Extension Manager

Extension Manager is a powerful Chrome extension that lets you do a host of things, everything from enabling/disabling extensions to renaming and deleting them. It features a popup-style card that shows all the installed extensions on your browser and lets you perform the basic operations. In addition, you also get a dashboard with a bunch of different features where you can group your extensions by category, set a group to have its extensions on at all times, and use rules to trigger extensions based on the websites you visit.

Get: Extension Manager

2. Extensify

Extensify is a minimal yet powerful extension manager that allows you to manage your extensions effectively. One aspect that makes it stand out among other extension managers is its ability to let you perform most of its operations right from the toolbar. So, you can enable/disable extensions with a single tap, switch them on/off collectivity using a toggle switch, or create dedicated profiles for extensions in different scenarios without leaving the popup window. Extensify also makes it easy to jump into settings for each extension in your browser and lets you launch Chrome apps right from the toolbar.

Get: Extensify

3. NooBoss

NooBoss is another feature-rich Chrome extensions manager. Much like Extenisfy, most of the operations on NooBoss can also be performed from the toolbar pop-up. However, what identifies it uniquely is the slew of extension information it offers. So, aside from the general operations (enable/disable/delete/group), you also get to view the history of all extension installations/uninstallations/updates, active extension recommendations for the websites you visit, and detailed information (manifest, permissions, etc.) about extensions. Additionally, NooBoss gives you the option to set custom rules to enable extensions based on the sites you visit.

Get: NooBoss

Of the three extension managers on this list, you can pick one that meets your requirements and suits your purpose. All three extensions are pretty straightforward, so you can use them effectively to manage your browser extensions.

How to use Chrome Extension Manager?

To help you get started, though, we have put together a walkthrough for the Extension Manager extension, which is a robust extension manager, in our opinion.

1. With the extension installed and enabled, click on the extension icon in the toolbar (next to the address bar) and pin the Extension Manager to the toolbar for easy access.
2. The Extension Manager icon has a number (in red) on top of it to depict the currently active extensions on your browser, so you readily know the number of active extensions in your browser. Click on it to view your entire list of installed extensions.
3. If you have a pretty extensive list of extensions, you can use the search bar to find an extension. Alternatively, you can click on the plus (+) button to switch between Grid and List view modes.
4. Click on the Settings (gear) button on the top right of the card to open Extension Manager settings.
5. Select General from the left sidebar to change the general settings of the extension. You can also backup and restore your Extension Manager data here.
6. Head to the Group section. In the General category, click the plus (+) button to create a new group or stick to Default to group your extensions. If you want to organize your extensions by category, the former is a far better approach. To select extensions, simply click on them.
   Alternatively, if you want to have some extensions enabled at all times, you can go to the Fixed section and select those extensions to lock them into a fixed group.
7. Lastly, there is the Rule section, which lets you create rules to trigger (related) extensions for the different websites you visit on the internet. You can set rules for the entire domain or its sub-domains. For instance, if you use the PiP extension with YouTube, you can set a rule to automatically run the PiP extension every time you visit YouTube.
   Another scenario where you can take advantage of rules is to trigger the Honey (or any other deals/coupons) extension for every online shopping website you visit.

Managing Chrome Extensions Made Easy

Using an extension manager can help you better organize and manage extensions on Chrome (and other Chromium browsers) efficiently and save you some significant time and effort you would otherwise spend performing those operations manually. Hope you found our guide useful. Let us know which of the three Chrome extension managers you installed and if you have any doubts regarding the same.