

That's it! Your Chromebook should restart itself, and you should be staring at your fancy new enhanced taskbar arrangement. Click the blue Restart button in the lower-right corner of the screen.See the line labeled "Quick Settings Revamp"? Change the setting alongside it from "Default" to "Enabled.".Type qs into the search box at the top of the screen that comes up.Open up a new Chrome window and type chrome:flags into the address bar.In fact, you've got just four fast steps to bring the new ChromeOS notification improvement onto your Chromebook without any waiting:

Now, clear that 20-second window on your calendar and let's make it happen, shall we? Your smarter Chromebook notification formula It'll feel instantly familiar and refreshingly consistent if you also use Android (at least Google's own standard Android setup, as seen on its self-made Pixel phones and a handful of other devices). JRĪnd, as an extra bonus, the Quick Settings panel gets a refreshed look to go along with its newly narrowed purpose - with larger buttons and a design that follows the current Google Material Design standard. It's a whole separate button that shows your current number of pending notifications at any moment (and then just goes away when no notifications are waiting).

Now, check out what happens with the new ChromeOS improvement we're about to summon: First, notifications get shifted over into their own dedicated area next to the Quick Settings panel in the Chromebook taskbar, where they're much easier to see, sift through, and manage. JRĪnd Goog almighty, if your days are anything like mine, it doesn't take long for that area to be absolutely overwhelmed with activity - and for that view to turn into a cluttered and unmanageable mess, where lots of potentially important alerts get buried away, hidden out of sight, and put at risk of being missed entirely. Real quick, let's take a peek at how notifications work on ChromeOS right now - 'cause we need that baseline point of comparison to appreciate how they're about to improve.Īs it stands now, anytime you get a notification - be it something on the system level or something from an Android app on your Chromebook, a progressive web app, or any other type of ChromeOS-compatible app you're rockin' - it shows up atop the Android-esque Quick Settings panel in the lower-right corner of the screen. Ready for your upgrade? The ChromeOS notification separation But you, as an exceptionally comely and intelligent creature who reads this column, aren't most people.Īnd with about 20 seconds of effort, you can bring the improvement onto your favorite Chromebook this very minute - and bring yourself a smarter, more efficient, and more productive virtual workspace. For most mere mortals, the feature won't roll out for a while longer yet.
