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Share Web links in a flash with Send from Gmail

This oldie-but-goodie Chrome extension makes sharing a link as simple as clicking one button.

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida

Want to share a link with someone? The usual drill: Copy the URL, open up your mail page, compose a new message, paste in the link and click Send. It's not difficult, but it's definitely more steps than it should be.

In fact, there's an easy way to cut out several of those steps. If you're a Gmail and Chrome user, Google's Send from Gmail extension greatly simplifies the link-sharing process.

This isn't new; it's been around since 2013. But it was new to me, and so I'm guessing it'll be new to at least a few of you as well. Hopefully useful, too.

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Click this one icon and presto: a new Gmail window with the link already pasted in.

Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET

Once installed, Send from Gmail adds an icon to your Chrome toolbar. When you're looking at a page you want to share, just give that icon a click.

In short order, you'll see a new Gmail message with the link pasted into the body and the name of the page in the subject line.

For your part, you just need to type the recipient's name and click Send. Doesn't get much easier than that.

Sure, there are lots of other ways to share links, but if you share a lot of them and want to do it faster, this is definitely worth a try.