Chromebook Computer Class Part 2:

Advanced Features

Written by Ms. Alyssa Soto

Published on 9/18/2025

From Basics to Advanced

Now that you've gotten familiar with the basics of your Chromebook, let's move on to a few more advanced features and functions that are available to you!

Save a Desk for Later

Close/Combine a Desk

Google Tasks

Do Not Disturb and Focus

Do Not Disturb

Focus

Touchpad Gestures

You may have run into a few features from skimming your fingers over the touchpad, such as going forward or back a page on your web browser. These actions aren't a fluke – they are there by design! These touchpad gestures are meant to make working on your Chromebook more efficient. There are lots of gestures you can learn, but I complied a short list of the ones you may use the most:

Two-Touch Gestures

Right-click – Click or tap the touchpad with two fingers.

Scroll – Swipe two fingers up or down on the touchpad to scroll vertically or left or right to scroll horizontally.

Move Between Pages – To return to a page you were just on, swipe left with two fingers. To go forward to a page you were just on, swipe right with two fingers.

Three-Touch Gestures

Open a link in a new tab – Move your cursor over the link you wish to open and click the touchpad with three fingers.

Close a Tab – Move your cursor over the tab you wish to close and click the touchpad with three fingers.

Switch between tabs – With your browser open, swipe three fingers left or right on the touchpad.

Open/Close Overview – Swipe three fingers up on the touchpad to open the overview. Swipe three fingers down to close the overview.

Four-Touch Gestures

Switch between desk views – Swipe four fingers left or right on the touchpad to switch between desk views.

You can find more touchpad gestures on the official Chromebook Help page here.

Chrome OS Clipboard

The Chrome OS Clipboard is a special feature that saves up to five of the most recent texts, images, or links that you copied. You can access the Chrome OS Clipboard by using the "Launcher/Search + V" keybind. This will open up a little window with a list of your most recent copied items. You can select any of the items from this window to paste it to your document, email, or project!

To remove an item from the Chrome OS Clipboard, simply hover over it in the window and click on the "X" symbol that appears.

Split Windows

Split windows is a multitasking feature that allows you to display and interact with two windows at the same time. This is a great feature for when you are typing up an assignment want to reference an article or video at a glance!

The Chromebook only allows two windows to be used for this feature. You can activate split windows in two ways:

Drag and Snap

Click and hold your cursor at the top of the browser window you want to split and drag it to the very edge of one side of the screen.
Wait for a square overlay to appear on half of the screen, then release the mouse to snap the window in place.
Select the second window you want to split from the remaining window(s) available.
Resize your windows as needed using the bar between your windows.

Split Window Menu

Hover your cursor over the "maximize" button at the top right of your browser next to the "X" button.
Wait a few seconds until a small menu appears showing your split options.

Split: evenly divides your windows over the screen at a 50-50 ratio.
Partial: divides your windows on a 70-30 ratio.
Full: enables fullscreen mode.
- - Move your cursor to the very top to access the browser's title bar and disable the fullscreen mode.
Float: makes your active window into a smaller one that stays visible over other windows.
- - This window is resizable and movable.

Select the split option you wish to use. Your active window will automatically snap to the side of your screen.
Select the second window you want to split from the remaining window(s) available.
Resize your windows as needed using the bar between your windows.

Chromebook Desks

Are you ready for your window and tab count to go haywire? Then you're ready to use Desks!

Your Chromebook allows you to create multiple desktops or "Desks" to keep your projects separated from each other. For example, you can use one Desk for your English essay and another desktop for your Math assignments! You can have multiple Desks open at a time, close them out when you're done with them, or save them for later and reopen them anytime you wish.

Make a New Desk

To make a new Desk:

Press the Show Windows key on your keyboard OR swipe three fingers up on the touchpad. This will open the Overview window.
Select the "+" icon at the top of the window to open a new Desk.
Name your desk and hit the Enter key to save it.

This is not required, but this will help keep track of what each Desk is for.

Select your new Desk from the list to open it.

You can also swipe four fingers left and right on the touchpad to swap between your active Desks.

Save a Desk for Later

You can keep your Desk open indefinitely or save them to use later. Follow these steps to do so:

Press the Show Windows key on your keyboard OR swipe three fingers up on the touchpad. This will open the Overview window.
Hover your cursor over the Desk you want to save for later.
Click on the three dots to open a dropdown menu and select Save desk for later.

To reopen saved Desks, simply open the Overview menu and click on the tab at the top titled "Saved for later." This will show you all the Desks you have saved. Then, select the Desk you wish to reopen to pick up where you left off!

Close/Combine a Desk

To close a Desk:

Press the Show Windows key on your keyboard OR swipe three fingers up on the touchpad. This will open the Overview window.
Hover your cursor over the Desk you want to close.
Click on the "X" button to close out the Desk.

Closing a Desk will close out all windows and tabs you had open on that Desk. If you don't want to lose the windows and tabs you had, but you don't want to have multiple Desks open, you will want to use the Combine Desks option. This will move your windows and tabs to your initial Desk before closing out the extra Desk.

To combine Desks:

Press the Show Windows key on your keyboard OR swipe three fingers up on the touchpad. This will open the Overview window.
Hover your cursor over the Desk you want to close.
Click on the three dots to open a dropdown menu and select Combine with Desk 1.

Keep in mind that "Desk 1" may be replaced with the name you chose for your initial Desk.

Google Tasks

Utilizing Google Calendar's to-do list can make managing tasks and assignments much easier!

Referred to as Google Tasks, you can find them by opening Google Calendar and selecting the circled checkmark next to your profile and the waffle menu in the upper right corner of the window. This can be found in both the browser version and application version of Google Calendar available on your Chromebook.

The tasks menu shows a list of tasks that you can add to and a list of completed tasks for review. You can assign due dates for each task and add additional details to avoid lengthy task titles. You can click on the three dots next to each task to add subtasks or star it to mark it as important.

Each task with a date attached to it will appear on your Google Calendar, which will provide a visual representation of your tasks for each week. This can help you plan and prioritize each task according to their deadline or the amount of work you expect to do.

The menu on the far left of the screen lets you swap between seeing all tasks and starred tasks as well as create additional task lists. Additional lists can be especially helpful if you want to separate your tasks by class or by club.

All tasks will be displayed on your Google Calendar under the same Tasks folder. This folder can be recolored the same way other calendars are: by clicking the three dots next to it and selecting a new color.

Unfortunately, the tasks you make are all saved under a single calendar – including tasks on separate lists. This means you cannot have color coded tasks according to your classes, sadly.

Do Not Disturb and Focus

If you find yourself easily distracted by notifications or would like to have a guided work session, you might find the Do Not Disturb and Focus features to be your best friend this school year. These two features can be found by clicking on the status tray on the bottom right of your screen.

Do Not Disturb

Do Not Disturb is a togglable feature that blocks all notifications from popping up in the corner of your screen, such as emails and chat messages. If you just want some quiet time to complete your schoolwork or are getting overwhelmed by a group conversation, you can use this feature to quiet those notifications without having to close your laptop or toggle the settings in your Google account.

Do Not Disturb is activated and deactivated with a simple click on the button from the status tray. It does not have an automatic shut-off, so you will have to remember to deactivate it when you want your notifications turned back on.

Focus

Focus is for those who want a bit more structure to their workflow. Focus has a timer feature that you can set for as long as you need and a section to add tasks you'd like to focus on. These tasks can be added in the Focus menu or pulled from your Google Tasks. You can only set one task to focus on at a time.

At the very bottom of this menu is an option to turn Do Not Disturb on while in Focus mode. You can turn it on to block notifications while you work, or turn it off if you would like to keep receiving notifications during the timed session.

While in Focus mode, an icon will appear next to the status tray in the bottom right corner. You can click on it to see how much time you have left in Focus and see which task you are focusing on. You can stop Focus mode at any time by clicking "Finish" or add more time by clicking "+10 min." Once the timed session ends, Focus will deactivate and Do Not Disturb (if enabled) will be turned off.

The World is Your Oyster Now!

Thank you for reading Part 2 of this Chromebook Computer Class series I created! There are lots of ways to use the features and tools that I talked about here and in Part 1 of this mini article series.

Do you have any other questions? Is there something else about your Chromebooks you would like to hear about? Let me know, and I might write up a Part 3 for this series!