The availability of third-party add-ons for Google Docs, Sheets and Google Slides has definitely made the Google productivity suite more capable and useful. If you haven’t tried them yet, open any Google Docs or Spreadsheet in your Google Drive and look for the Extensions menu near Help. Users of Google Workspace may need to ask their admin to enable the service that provides add-ons for organizations.
For starters, Google add-ons are like extensions for Chrome. Extensions add new features to the Chrome browser and add-ons extend the functionality of Google Office applications.
Anyone can write a Google add-on with some basic programming knowledge to write HTML and CSS to style the add-on. The server side code is written in Google Apps Script which is similar to JavaScript but runs in the Google Cloud.
Google Apps Script vs. Google Add-ons
Google add-ons are written in the Google Apps Script language, but while regular Google Scripts can work on any document in your Google Drive, add-ons only work against the document or sheet currently open in your browser.
Another big difference is that you can see the source code of a regular Google Script while in the case of add-ons, the code is hidden from the end user. This helps developers secure their code but a downside is that the user has no clue about what’s going on behind the scenes.
We’ve seen issues where Chrome extensions and add-ons for Google Docs can also be targets. For example, can the add-on email a copy of the current document or sheet to another email address? Or maybe it can share a folder on Google Drive with someone else. The good part is that the add-ons listed in Google Workspace have been tested and reviewed by Google and, if they require access to sensitive scopes (such as sending Gmail or accessing Google Drive), they go through a security review process.
The best add-ons for Google Docs, Sheets and Google Slides
The Google Workspace marketplace lists hundreds of Google add-ons and here are a few favorites that you should have in your Google Docs and Sheets. These are compatible with both GSuite and consumer Google accounts.
- Mail Merge for Gmail – Send personalized emails with emails to multiple email recipients with Mail Merge for Gmail and Google Workspace.
- Document Studio – Automatically generate certificates, invoices, and other documents from source data in Google Sheets or Google Forms submissions.
- Download Gmail Emails – Download your Gmail messages and attachments to Google Drive for archiving.
- Email Scheduler for Gmail – Schedule emails within Gmail to be sent at a specific date and time. Send repetitive emails that go on a recurring schedule.
- Google Drive Permissions Auditor – Find out who has access to your files on Google Drive.
- Gmail Address Extractor – Add-on extracts email addresses from the headers and body of email messages to prepare a mailing list.
- Creator Studio for Google Slides – Convert Google Slides presentations into animated GIFs and MP4 movies.
- Notifications for Google Forms – Receive Google Forms responses in an email message when people submit your forms. Send customized email notifications to respondents.
- Email Google Spreadsheet as PDF – Convert Google Spreadsheet as PDF, Excel or CSV and email to multiple people. Email sheets manually or on a recurring schedule.
- Bulk Gmail Forward – Easily forward one or more email threads from Gmail to any other address.
Related Tutorial: How to Create a Google Docs Add-on