Can you have desktop icons on Chromebook?
Contents Show
The Chromebook desktop has a minimal look. Maybe a bit too minimal without any desktop shortcuts like other operating systems. That does not mean that you cannot customize the look and feel or your desktop. This article will explain how you can customize your Chromebooks desktop and the launcher. If you usually use your laptops desktop to place shortcuts and save files for easy access, you will miss this feature for sure. However, if you are like me and like to keep your desktop as minimal as possible, this will be a welcome change. I cannot make my Chromebooks desktop messy, because it wont let me. How to add icons to Chromebook desktopCan you place app icons on your Chromebooks desktop? No. Chrome OS does not have that option yet. You cannot place app shortcuts on your Chromebook desktop. However, you can pin icons to the taskbar. The taskbar is the bottom row of apps on your Chromebooks desktop. Chromebook TaskbarTo pin an app to the taskbar, right-click and choose Pin. Pin app to taskbarFile Shortcuts on Chromebook DesktopNo is the answer here too. Chrome OS does not have an option to add file shortcuts to the desktop. To open files and folders, open the Files app, and navigate to the folder or file. Read more about the Files app here. The wallpaper app has images organized into a few categories. You will see images that you have seen on the Android Wallpaper app and also some additional categories. Change WallpaperYou can change your Chromebooks wallpaper using one of the following options: Right-click DesktopJust like on your Windows or MacBook, you can right-click your desktop, choose Set wallpaper to launch the wallpaper app. Click any image to download and set as your wallpaper. My favorite source is Unsplash. Each category also has a Daily Refresh option which changes the wallpaper automatically every day. If you select Daily refresh, click the Refresh icon to change the wallpaper. Your current wallpaper will be replaced with another one from the same category. The Explore button next to Refresh lets you view the source of that image. You can see who took the image and read other details too. The My Images category in the wallpaper app lets you access your own images and set them as wallpapers. You can also browse images from the Files app and right-click to set the wallpaper. Right Click an Image from the file browserIf you have an image on your Chromebook that you want to use as wallpaper, open the Files app and right-click the image. Now, choose Set as wallpaper. This option is available for images in the Google Drive section of the Files app. This means you can browse Google Drive using the Files app, find an image, right-click and make it your Chromebooks wallpaper. You need not download that image to your Chromebook first to do that. Bouns tip: Learn how to change Chromebooks wallpaper automatically. Chromebook ShelfThe bottom bar of your Chromebooks screen is called Shelf. This is similar to your computers system tray. Let us take a look at the different features of the Shelf. Chromebook LauncherThere is a circle icon on the bottom-left corner of your Chromebooks desktop. This is the launcher icon. This brings up the search field which you can use to:
If your Chromebook supports Google Assistant, you will see an icon to launch the Assistant as well here. Below the search field, you will see your recently used apps. You will also see a link to the most recent web page that you visited on other devices where you use the same Google account. This feature is called Continue Reading. This helps you continue from where you left off on other computers. Pinned Apps on the ShelfYou can pin your favorite apps to the Shelf to access them quickly. Since we dont have desktop shortcuts on Chromebooks, these pinned apps will come handy. Another useful feature is the keyboard shortcut that comes with these pinned apps. In the above example, the fifth pinned item is the Twitter app. I can press ALT + 5 to open this app. Similarly, ALT + 1 will open YouTube and ALT + 2 will open the Files app. Chrome OS System TrayOn the bottom-right corner of your desktop, you will see:
Click this area to open the system tray. Time and Battery on Chromebook DesktopThe system tray hosts the following elements:
NotificationsIn Chrome OS, notifications are displayed in the system tray area. Click the bottom right corner of the screen where you see WiFi, Battery icons and time to see the system tray. Here is an example notification. This shows up when you take a screenshot. Did you notice the number one within a white circle? That is the notification count. It shows the number of unread notifications you have. Each notification comes with its own quick actions. In our example, we have shortcuts to copy the image to the clipboard (to paste into a document) and annotate the image using Google Keep. Click the x icon on the top right corner of the notification to remove it from the notifications list. When there are multiple notifications, you will also see an icon similar to that of Android to clear all notifications with a single click. Launch AppsThere are three different ways to open the launcher in Chrome OS:
At first, the launcher opens half, with the following options:
Now, let us expand the launcher by sliding up further. Launcher, ExpandedWhen the launcher is fully opened, you will see the complete list of apps that you have on your Chromebook. This includes your system apps like Settings, Shortcuts and Files, etc, Chrome Apps and Android apps. If your Chromebook supports Linux apps, and you have enabled it, you will see your Linux apps as well here. Now, let us assume that you have the web version of the Gmail app installed (Chrome app) and also the Gmail Android app. How will you identify them? All Chrome apps will have a Chrome logo on their app icons. Take a look at the Gmail icon here: Also, notice those four dots on the right-hand side? They indicate how many pages of apps you have. You can scroll up or down to go to all those pages. Also, you can touch and hold an app and drag it to move it between those pages. For example, if my Gmail app is on the second page of the launcher, I can move it to the first page for easy access. Managing Apps from the LauncherTo open any app from the launcher, simply tap or click it. If you touch and hold an app icon or right-click it, you will see a few additional options.
Grouping Apps into Folders in LauncherYou might have done this on Android or iOS. Chrome OS also lets you group apps into folders. For example, I can move all my reading apps into one single folder. This saves a lot of space on the screen and also makes it easy to manage. You can also use this trick to hide apps that you dont use often. To create a folder, drag an app on top of another. A new folder will be created with those two apps in it. You can now drag and drop additional apps to this folder now. I wish if we could do this on the shelf as well, but we cant do that yet. By default, the folder will be named Unnamed folder. You can click within the folder and then type in a new name, like Reading apps.
|