Chrome introduces genius new feature to make life easier

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New tool lets you share links to highlighted sections of text with a click

Google Chrome
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Google has rolled out a new ‘Copy Link to Highlight’ feature in Chrome that lets users link to a specific segment of highlighted text for easy sharing with others. 

One of several new productivity-focused features in Chrome 90, the new tool lets you pinpoint information you want to share then link directly to it. When clicked, the link will take you straight to the highlighted section, rather than dumping you at the top of the page and leaving you to hunt for the relevant info.

The Copy Link to Highlight feature first surfaced in the latter part of 2020 in Chrome Canary, where new features are routinely trialed before hitting the mainstream. 

A wider rollout of the feature was firmed up by Google Chrome’s Director of Engineering Adrienne Porter Felt, who tweeted to confirm it was happening.

Google has been tinkering with the feature for a while: a recent Chrome extension, ‘Link to Text Fragment’, provided the same functionality in Chromium and Chrome, but it's now becoming a native feature of the Chrome browser and comes packaged with Chrome 90, which recently rolled out in its stable version.

Should you find yourself needing to share a designated fragment of text with someone, you can follow the steps below.

Google Chrome

(Image credit: Google Chrome Blog)
  1. Highlight the block or specific text quote you'd like to share.
  2. Right-click on the text. 
  3. There should be an option to Copy Link to Highlight to copy the item to the clipboard.
  4. The copied link will now open the corresponding chunk of text when a person clicks on it in Chrome or Chromium. 

And that's that: simple, but very effective for conveying the finer details of that wordy blog or lengthy article. It follows a slew of updates to the Chrome platform, including the Sharing Hub for Chrome desktop and a bunch of auto-fill improvements. 

Google is gradually pushing out the feature to Chrome 90 users on desktop and Android over the next week, so don't worry if this hasn't yet appeared for you. The feature will also be coming soon to iOS.

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Luke Wilson
Luke Wilson

Luke is a Trainee News Writer at T3 and contributor to Tom's Guide, having graduated from the DMU/Channel 4 Journalism School with an MA in Investigative Journalism. Before switching careers, he worked for Mindshare WW. When not indoors messing around with gadgets, he's a disc golf enthusiast, keen jogger, and fond of all things outdoors.