Use These Extensions to Trick Google Meet

Google Meet is now free for everyone. The search giant has completed its rollout and anyone with an email address – that is, a Gmail address – can use it to host free video chats. Meet isn’t as full-featured as other video chat apps, but a few useful browser extensions can add much-needed functionality. Oh, and they’re free too.

Before I get to them, a word about Meet: it’s true that Google is working to provide additional functionality such as a tiled layout that can show you up to 16 people at a time (what others might call a “grid view »), As well as low light and noise canceling modes to improve your appearance and sound quality. You may not need some of the extensions I’m going to recommend when they drop; Google changes may even hinder expansion. If this happens, at least you will know why.

View Google Meet spreadsheet

If you don’t want to wait for Google to roll out its grid view for Google Meet, use this Chrome extension to get it yourself. With all the changes Google has made to Meet, it’s possible that this extension will work one day and screw up tomorrow.

Alternatively, you can also try this other Google Meet Grid View extension, which is likely to be more updated than the one above. (And if you need an extension for Firefox or Edge, you’ll find them here too .)

Nod-Reactions for Google Meet

The name speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Use the Nod extension and you can give other meeting attendees a quick reaction to what they are doing, saving you the hassle of having to turn on the microphone and wait until the conversation is quiet to interrupt your conversation. meaningful comment. Caveat: Make sure everyone in your Google Meet chat has this extension installed, or you will be responding to live.

Meeting attendance

Whether you’re that boss or just an overworked teacher desperate to bring your lesson plans to a virtual environment, Meet Attendance is a great extension you can use to keep track of who comes to your meetings. It’s less practical if you have weekly meetings with your Dungeons & Dragons friends, but if you’re trying to run an organization or group of six-year-olds – which sometimes seems the same thing – this extension can help! (Here’s a Firefox version of the concept of this app.)

Google Meet Push to Talk

This extension reproduces my favorite Zoom feature – which I always try to convince my friends to use. Instead of sitting around with the mic off all the time (ugh), leave it off and just hit the spacebar when you need to say something. This feature isn’t built into Google Meet by default, but install Push to Talk and it will.

Tactiq pins for Google Meet

This is unusual. Assuming the presenters in your Google Meet chat are pretty self-explanatory – unlike me who speaks too fast – this extension can automatically generate transcripts of your meetings. It does this by recording all of the live signatures that Google Meet creates, which means you need to enable this feature in a meeting first before Tactiq can do anything. Once your meeting is over, it is very easy to save everything she wrote down. And while the transcript may be 100% inaccurate, it will be close. (And it’s much better than recording the meeting yourself. Uh.)

More…

Leave a Reply