ChromeOS gets a major update with plenty of goodies and new features

Last week, Google released its major ChromeOS M130 update to everyone on the operating system’s stable channel. This latest version of the Chromebook OS includes a variety of improvements, including Quick Insert, Focus, and Welcome Recap features, among others.

Quick Insert is a new menu that allows you to quickly input emojis, symbols, GIFs, links, calculations, and even access AI features. Depending on the type of Chromebook you have, Quick Inserts can be activated with a special keyboard key. However, all ChromeOS devices can also do it using the Launcher key + F keyboard shortcut.

Focus is a new feature that makes it easy for you to toggle ChromeOS’s Do Not Disturb (DND) mode, set and adjust your focus times, select or create new Google Tasks, play curated playlists for better focus through YouTube Music Premium (subscription sold separately). The idea here is to reduce distractions and boost productivity.

Welcome Recap is a new feature that helps you jump back into what you were doing when you start up your Chromebook. Once enabled, you can quickly view and restore apps and tabs that were open in your previous session. It’ll also show you info you might be interested in, like weather, upcoming calendar events, and Google Drive suggestions.

Other notable improvements in this update include: quick access to starred Google Drive files from the shelf, an AI-powered Recorder app that can create transcriptions, better OS-level privacy settings, multi-calendar events support, and more flexibility with Picture-in-Picture (PIP) windows for playing videos while doing other tasks.

ChromeOS version M130 is currently being rolled out to all users and should be available to you within the upcoming days if you don’t already have access to these new features and improvements.