The 7 Best Gmail Add-Ons and Extensions in 2026, Compared

The Gmail add-ons and extensions worth installing in 2026 are Streak for a CRM inside your inbox, Boomerang for follow-up reminders, Mailtrack for open tracking, Grammarly for writing help, Inbox When Ready for fewer inbox checks, Asana for Gmail for turning emails into tasks, and Docusign for signing attachments. Most have a free plan that covers light use.

Gmail does a lot on its own, and every tool you bolt on gets some level of access to your mail. So the question isn't which extensions are popular, it's which gap in your week each one closes. Below: how add-ons differ from extensions, prices and limits drawn from what each company publishes, a short profile of each pick, and how to install, review and remove them safely.

Gmail add-ons vs. extensions: how they differ

A Gmail add-on is installed into your Google account from the Google Workspace Marketplace and opens in Gmail's right-hand side panel. A Gmail extension is installed into your web browser, usually from the Chrome Web Store, and changes how the Gmail website looks and behaves in that browser only.

That difference decides three practical things:

• Where it works. Google's developer documentation says add-ons that extend Gmail do so on both desktop and mobile clients. An extension lives in one browser on one computer, so it does nothing in the Gmail phone app or in a different browser.
• How much it can change. Add-ons stay inside the side panel and the compose window. Extensions can rewrite the whole Gmail page: hide the inbox, add buttons to every message, insert pipelines above your mail.
• Who controls it at work. On a Google Workspace account, an admin can limit which Marketplace apps people install. Google's allowlist guide for admins covers allowing apps for the whole company or only some teams, and removing an app cuts off access even for people who already installed it.

Some tools come in both forms. Mailtrack, for example, offers a Chrome extension and a Gmail add-on. When there's a choice, the add-on is usually the tidier option because it follows your account to your phone.

The best Gmail add-ons and extensions at a glance

Each price is the cheapest paid tier on the maker's pricing page as of November 2026. "Annual" means the monthly figure assumes you pay for a year up front.

Check what Gmail already does before you install anything

Several jobs people install extensions for are now built into Gmail at no cost. Gmail's Schedule send holds up to 100 scheduled emails, according to Google's scheduling page, and Nudges can suggest emails to reply to or follow up on, switched on from the General tab of Gmail's full settings, per Google's reply help page. Gmail also has its own templates and, on many accounts, a mail merge; our guide to Gmail mail merge covers when the built-in version is enough.

I treat every extension as a small, permanent cost: one more company with access to my mail, one more thing that can break when Gmail updates its layout. A built-in feature that does most of the job usually wins. The seven tools below earn their place because each does something Gmail doesn't.

1. Streak: a CRM that lives inside your inbox

Streak is a browser extension that adds pipelines, contact records and deal stages directly to Gmail, so a sales process or a hiring round runs from the inbox instead of a separate CRM. Paid plans include shared pipelines, so a team works from the same stages.

Streak's pricing page says it supports Google Chrome, Safari and Microsoft Edge, not Firefox, and it has iPhone and Android apps for checking pipelines away from your desk. The free plan is email tools only, with no pipelines: email and link tracking, snippets, a mail merge capped at 50 sends a day, and Thread Splitter. Pipelines start on Pro: $49 per user each month with a yearly commitment, $59 without one. Pro+ is $69 with yearly payment and adds advanced reports and automations.

When I'm running a partner search, the hard part is never the emails, it's remembering which of a dozen conversations is waiting on me. A pipeline view in the inbox answers that at a glance, which is the whole argument for Streak over a CRM in another tab.

Best for: small teams that sell, recruit or fundraise from Gmail. Skip it if: you only want tracking and snippets, since the free tier covers those, or your team has a separate CRM it's committed to. Our page on alternatives to folk, another lightweight CRM, weighs Streak against similar tools.

2. Boomerang: bring emails back when nobody replies

Boomerang for Gmail is an extension that schedules emails, returns messages to your inbox at a time you choose, and reminds you to follow up if a sent email gets no reply. Gmail already does the scheduling part, so the reason to install Boomerang is the conditional reminder: come back only if nobody answered.

Boomerang's homepage lists support for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and Edge, and describes a follow-up reminder you can set to fire only when nobody replies, or regardless. Its Inbox Pause feature stops new mail from landing in your inbox until you're ready for it. The plans page gives the free Basic plan 10 message credits a month. Paid yearly, Personal works out to $4.98 monthly and covers Gmail accounts only; Pro, at $14.98, covers Google Workspace addresses too. New accounts get a 30-day trial of the Pro features.

I send most proposals on a Thursday and set Boomerang to put the thread back in front of me the following Tuesday morning if the client hasn't written back. If they have, I never see the reminder. That's the difference from Gmail's Nudges, where Gmail decides what to resurface and when.

Best for: anyone whose work depends on other people answering. Skip it if: Gmail's Schedule send and Nudges already keep you on top of things, because 10 credits a month on the free plan runs out fast.

3. Mailtrack: see when your email was opened

Mailtrack adds open tracking to Gmail, with a pop-up alert when someone opens an email you sent. It comes as both a Chrome extension and a Gmail add-on, and its plans are now sold on the Mailsuite website.

On the Mailsuite pricing page, the free tier tracks unlimited emails, but tracking history shows the first open only and link-click tracking covers 10 emails. Paid tiers run $2.99 per user monthly for the Mailtrack plan and $5.99 for the fuller Mailsuite plan. Free emails carry a "Sent with Mailtrack" line; Mailsuite's help page says you can click Remove signature on any single email and it's still tracked, while a paid plan removes it by default.

I keep tracking for sales and vendor threads, where knowing a quote was seen helps me time a call. For anything personal, or to my own team, I turn it off. A colleague who learns their reads were being logged tends to trust the next email a little less.

Best for: sales, recruiting and anyone timing a follow-up. Skip it if: your recipients mostly use Apple Mail, or tracking would feel out of place in the relationship.

4. Grammarly: tidier writing in every email

Grammarly is a browser extension that checks spelling, grammar and tone as you type in Gmail, and on paid plans rewrites whole sentences.

Grammarly's plans page lists extensions for Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge. The free plan includes spelling and grammar checks, tone visibility and 100 AI prompts a month. Pro costs $12 a month and adds one-click full-sentence rewrites, tone adjustment, plagiarism and AI-text detection, and 2,000 AI prompts a month.

Where it pays off is the email you write while tired. When I draft a late reply to a client complaint, the tone check flags the sentence that reads sharper than I meant, and that one flag is worth more to me than all the comma fixes. For other writing tools, see our roundup of AI writing assistants for Mac.

Best for: anyone who writes a lot of email, especially in a second language. Skip it if: you can't send work email content to another service under your company's rules, so check with IT first.

5. Inbox When Ready: check email on purpose, not on reflex

Inbox When Ready is a free browser extension that hides your Gmail inbox by default, so you can search, write and find old threads without new mail pulling you in. You click a button to show the inbox when you decide it's time.

Its homepage lists Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge. Both editions include the show and hide button, a scheduled lockout that keeps the inbox hidden during set hours, and a time budget that tracks how often and how long you check email. The pricing page says the free edition adds a small message to your email signature. Pro removes it and adds a keyboard shortcut, hidden category notifications and unlimited email addresses, for $4 a month on yearly billing ($5 if you pay monthly). New users get Pro free for 14 days.

On writing days I lock my inbox until 11 a.m. I can still open Gmail to find a brief someone sent last week, and I don't lose the morning to whatever arrived overnight. Nothing about email changed; I just stopped seeing it first.

Best for: anyone who opens Gmail to do one thing and loses half the morning. Skip it if: your job is answering email as it arrives, such as support or an executive's inbox.

6. Asana for Gmail: emails become tasks your team can see

Asana for Gmail is a Google Workspace add-on that turns an email into an Asana task from Gmail's side panel, with the email's context carried over. You can also search for existing tasks, comment on them and mark them complete without leaving your inbox.

Asana's Gmail integration page gives the setup: install the add-on from the Google Workspace Marketplace, sign in with the Gmail account linked to Asana, then open an email and click the Asana icon in the right-hand panel. Tick Sync future replies to this task when you create it, and later replies in the thread post to the task automatically. You need an Asana account; Asana's pricing page shows Personal free for up to two users, and Starter at $10.99 per user monthly on an annual plan.

The sync option is the part I'd point a team to. When a client emails a change request, the task gets every later reply too, so whoever picks it up isn't asking me to forward the thread.

Best for: teams that already plan work in Asana. Skip it if: you work alone and Gmail's own Tasks panel is enough, or your team plans work in a different project tool, in which case check whether that tool has its own Gmail add-on.

7. Docusign: sign an attachment without leaving Gmail

The Docusign eSignature add-on lets you sign a PDF attachment from Gmail's side panel and email the finished agreement back with the file attached. One install covers Docs and Drive as well as Gmail.

Docusign's Marketplace listing shows a free plan with unlimited signing and three free sends, so signing what others send you costs nothing; sending your own agreements regularly needs a paid Docusign plan. The listing also shows broad permissions, including sending email, viewing messages and reading contacts, and Docusign states that it only gathers the documents you open with the add-on.

A vendor sent me an NDA as a PDF on a Friday afternoon, and I signed it from the side panel between two calls. No download, no printer, no scanning app, and it was back in their inbox before the second call started.

Best for: freelancers, founders and anyone who gets contracts by email. Skip it if: your company already uses another e-signature tool, since its Gmail add-on will fit your records better.

How to install a Gmail add-on

You install a Gmail add-on from the side panel of Gmail's website, and it then shows up in the phone app too. These steps follow Google's side panel help page:

1. Go to mail.google.com on your computer. If you can't see the side panel, click Show side panel at the bottom right.
2. Click Get Add-ons in the side panel.
3. Search for the tool you want and select it.
4. Click Install, then Continue.
5. Choose your Google account and follow the steps on screen, including the permissions screen.

The new icon appears in the side panel. Open an email and click it to use the add-on with that message.

How to install a Gmail extension in Chrome

Gmail extensions install into the browser, so you add them once per browser and per Chrome profile. Google's Chrome Web Store help gives the steps:

1. Open the Chrome Web Store and find the extension.
2. Click Add to Chrome.
3. Read the permissions and click Add extension.
4. Reload Gmail. Most extensions ask you to sign in or connect your Google account the first time.

Google notes you can't add extensions in Incognito mode or as a guest, and that some show a warning if Enhanced Safe Browsing doesn't trust them. That warning is worth taking seriously for anything that will read your mail. Safari and Firefox versions, where a maker offers them, are downloaded separately; Streak, for instance, sends Safari users to Apple's store.

Are Gmail extensions safe?

Gmail add-ons and extensions are as safe as the company behind them, because most need permission to read, and often send, your email. Before installing one, read the permissions screen, check who makes it, and prefer tools with a clear pricing page and a privacy policy over free tools with no visible business model.

Three checks I run before anything touches my inbox:

• What does it ask for? A grammar checker needs to read what you type. A tool that only hides your inbox shouldn't need to send email as you.
• Is there a work policy? On a Workspace account, ask IT before installing. Your admin may already have approved one tool for the job.
• Does it still need access? Uninstalling an extension doesn't always revoke the access it was granted to your Google account. That lives in a separate place, covered next.

For wider workflow ideas that don't need any extension at all, our list of Gmail automation ideas is a good place to start.

How to remove Gmail add-ons and extensions

Removing a tool takes up to three steps, depending on what you installed: uninstall the add-on, remove the browser extension, and revoke the tool's access to your Google account.

Uninstall a Gmail add-on

1. In Gmail's side panel, click the add-on you want to uninstall and choose Manage add-on.
2. Select the add-on in the window that opens.
3. Click Uninstall, then Uninstall app.

Google documents this on its side panel page.

Remove a Chrome extension

Right-click the extension's icon next to the address bar and choose Remove from Chrome. If the icon is hidden, go to More > Extensions > Manage extensions, click Remove and confirm, per Google's Chrome help. The same page shows how to keep an extension but limit it to certain sites under Details.

Revoke its access to your Google account

1. Open myaccount.google.com/linkedapps while signed in to the account the tool used.
2. Select Access to your Google Account, then select the app.
3. Select See details, then Remove access, and confirm.

Google's linked apps help notes that removing access doesn't delete data the app already holds; for that, delete your account with the company itself.

Every January I open Manage extensions and the linked apps page side by side, and anything I haven't used since summer goes. It's a short job, and the list of things to cut is always longer than I expect.

Which Gmail add-on or extension should you install first?

Start with the single tool that fixes your most expensive weekly annoyance, then live with it for a fortnight before adding another. Matched to the most common problems:

I keep it to two or three extensions that change the Gmail page itself. Each one is another thing that can misbehave when Gmail changes its layout, and when something breaks, the fewer suspects the better. Add-ons in the side panel don't touch the page, so they're easier to live with.