10 Offline Apps for Chrome
Google’s own Docs app is a great tool for Chrome users whether or not they have an available Internet connection. It includes all the essential functions of a text editor, as well as sync and collaboration once you’re back online.
Google Keep is a criminally underrated program that works like a combination of Evernote, a to-do list, and Post-it notes. There are a variety of note types you can use to create checklists, quick reminders, voice memos, photo notes and more. It’s not great for long items, but for the fifteen little things you want to remember every day, it’s perfect.
If you’re a developer, Postman is a great tool. It helps you build, test and document your APIs quickly and easily. It works great offline, but when you’re online, you can also take advantage of cloud sync and multi-user collaboration.
Kami is a tool for marking up PDFs and other documents. It allows you to highlight, scribble on, and otherwise annotate any PDF and integrates with both Google Drive and Google Classroom. When you’re online, you also get collaboration features to work with colleagues and share annotated documents easily.
Making complex diagrams can be a huge annoyance, especially if you’re disconnected from many of the online services that offer to help. Gliffy is a stand-alone app that you can use to create some good-looking flow charts and diagrams. This is ideal for network admins, project managers, or small business owners trying to get things organized.
In the competitive field of image editors that aren’t Photoshop, Polarr stands out. It looks great, it’s flexible, and it includes a great set of tools that aren’t too limiting. It’s not as fully featured as Photoshop, of course, but for day-to-day work, it’s exceptional. Alongside your essentials, Polarr also includes some less-common options, like RAW processing, selective adjustments, and perspective correction.
Caret is a Chrome-based plain text editor designed for web developers, programmers, and monospace font enthusiasts. It runs beautifully, and it includes some features you’d pay a heap for in other apps, including multi-caret editing, user themes, and a command palette a la Sublime Text. Even outside of Chrome apps, this is an awesome free text editor.
Managing a to-do list is the kind of thing computers were made for. That, and guiding missiles. Wunderlist does a great job of the former, with an attractive and easy-to-use interface. And you can use Wunderlist on just about any device, making it easy to carry your reminders from one place to another. If you don’t already have a dedicated to-do list app, this should be your first stop.
A good markdown editor can be a hard thing to find. If you do a lot of writing for the web, it’s a great thing to have. Minimalist Markdown Editor takes a lightweight approach, intentionally providing a spare user interface and little in the way of customization to help you stay focused on your writing. Of course, you’ll find an included HTML preview mode to see your final output as well as a handy quick-reference chart for when you forget how to make tables.
Every computer on Earth has a calculator, but good luck trying to use them for any real math. If you want to do something beyond arithmetic, Scientific Calculator is an aptly-named app to get you there. With an extremely powerful interface, you should be able to do some complex math.
With the above offline apps for Chrome, you can power up Chrome’s offline ability and get some work done even when you’re away from an Internet connection.