Documentation
Utils Grid is a side panel with ten page tools and eleven offline utilities. Click the toolbar icon or press Alt+Shift+D. A first-time quick tour starts on its own; replay it from the ? button or Settings, Help & about.
Getting started
- Open the panel and press Allow once. Tools then work on whichever tab you switch to. (Without it they work only on pages where you opened the panel.)
- Click a tool card. Star a card to pin it; hide tools you don't use in Settings.
- Most tools have a scope: the whole page, your text selection, or an element you pick (Esc cancels, arrow keys grow or shrink the pick).
Chrome does not allow extensions on chrome:// pages, the Chrome Web Store, other extensions' pages, the built-in PDF viewer, or file:// pages unless you allow it at chrome://extensions. The panel tells you when that is the case.
Page tools
| Tool | How to use it |
|---|---|
| Color picker | Click, then pick any pixel. Copy HEX, RGB or HSL. History and a palette extracted from the page are listed. Adjust shifts lightness and sets opacity, with HEX alpha, rgba() and hsla() output. Chrome needs a click inside the page before the eyedropper starts. |
| Images | Scan finds img, srcset, picture, CSS backgrounds and SVG. Filter by size or type; download one, several, or all as a zip. |
| Table export | Pick a table, then export CSV, TSV, JSON or Markdown. Merged cells are expanded. |
| Page to PDF | Choose paper size, orientation, margins, scale and scope. Lightweight opens Chrome's print dialog (choose Save as PDF); High quality writes a vector PDF directly. |
| Screenshot | Visible area, full page, an element or a dragged region, as PNG, JPEG or WebP. Each shot is kept on this device (the latest 24; switch it off with "Keep screenshots to edit later") so you can press Annotate this screenshot now or come back to it later. |
| Annotate | Two views. On the page: draw with pen, highlighter, line, arrow, double arrow, rectangle, ellipse, triangle, diamond, star, numbered steps, a solid cover-up box and text, in layers, with an optional fill. Saved per page; a page with drawings shows an Annotated badge in its corner (needs the all-sites access) that opens this tool. Clear all removes every drawing and turns the page dim off too. Export as SVG, PNG, WebP, PDF or editable data and import it again. Screenshots: draw on any screenshot you took, or on an image you open or paste, then copy or download it. The drawings are saved with the screenshot so you can keep editing; the original image is never changed. |
| Headers & method | Add rules that set, change or remove request or response headers, or change the request method. Global, or per tab with the debugger engine. Rules persist; turn them off at any time. |
| User agent | Pick a browser or device identity (including Client Hints and navigator.*), globally or per tab. |
| Links | Collect links from the page, a selection or a picked section. Filter, group by site, copy as text, or export CSV or JSON. |
| Form filler | Fills fields by label, placeholder and type with realistic test data, or with your own profiles saved per domain. It handles native fields and the dropdowns, multiselects, checkbox groups, radio groups and switches of UI libraries (PrimeNG, Radix / shadcn, Ant Design, Material, ng-select, anything built on the ARIA patterns). Never submits. Four tabs: Fill (scope, profile, seed, run), Profiles (create, edit, import and export), Fields (custom fields and default values for all sites) and Password (a fixed test password, or a generated one using the Password generator's own options, the same on every "confirm password" field in a form). |
Utilities
Utilities run entirely in the panel, work on any tab (including chrome:// pages) and need no site access. Their inputs are held in memory only: nothing you type, and no secret key, is saved. Only option choices (such as the selected algorithm) are remembered.
| Utility | How to use it |
|---|---|
| Password generator | Characters mode: set a length (4 to 128) and choose uppercase, lowercase, numbers and symbols; every chosen kind is guaranteed to appear, and "avoid look-alikes" drops O 0 I l 1. Words mode builds phrases such as silly eagle or poor crying wolf: pick a style (adjective + noun, adjective + action + noun, nouns only, random words), a word list (everything, animals, nature, food, things), a separator (hyphen, space, dot, underscore, none), casing, and optionally a number and a symbol. Make up to 50 at once. The strength meter counts real bits from the lists, so a two-word phrase is shown as weak; use more words for a strong one. Passwords are made with cryptographic randomness and are never saved. |
| Randomizer | One item per line. Pick one chooses a random line; Shuffle reorders them. Options trim lines and skip empty ones. |
| Base64 | Text or file. Encode or decode live. URL-safe uses - and _; padding and 76-column wrapping are optional. Decoded bytes that are not text can be saved as a file. Files up to 10 MB. |
| URL encoder | Encode or decode with encodeURIComponent, encodeURI (keeps URL punctuation) or everything-but-unreserved. Form-style uses + for spaces. |
| Hashing | MD5 (legacy), SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512 of text or a file (up to 200 MB). Hex or Base64. Paste an expected hash in Compare with to check it. |
| HMAC | SHA-1, 256, 384 or 512. The key can be text, hex or Base64 and is hidden by default; it is never saved. |
| UUID & Nano ID | UUID v4 (random), v7 (time-ordered) or nil, with hyphens and case options. Nano ID makes short URL-safe identifiers (21 characters by default, as unlikely to collide as a UUID): choose the length (2 to 128), combine lowercase, uppercase, numbers and the symbols _ -, add your own extra characters, or drop look-alikes (O 0 I l 1 and |
| Time converter | Pick a source and destination zone (searchable), then edit either date and time, the epoch seconds or milliseconds, or press Now. A time that a daylight-saving jump skips is reported. |
| Cron helper | Five fields (optionally six with seconds), names such as MON or JAN, @daily style shortcuts. Shows a plain-English description and the next runs in the chosen zone. When day-of-month and day-of-week are both set, either can match (classic cron). |
| Regex tester | JavaScript regular expressions with flags g, i, m, s, u, y. Find highlights matches and lists groups; Replace supports $1, $<name>, $&; Split lists the parts. A pattern that takes more than 1.5 seconds is stopped. |
| QR code | Create: type text or a link, set size, spacing, error correction and colors, then copy or download a PNG. Read: paste an image (Ctrl+V), drop one, choose a file, or scan the visible area or a dragged region of the page. Several codes in one image are all listed. Links open only when you click Open link. |
Engines
Screenshot, PDF and header rules each have two engines, switched inside the tool (defaults in Settings).
- Lightweight: no banner. Screenshots stitch scrolled slices, PDFs use the print dialog, header rules use Chrome's declarative rules.
- High quality: uses Chrome's debugger for exact full-page capture, real vector PDFs and per-tab interception. Chrome shows a "debugging this tab" banner while it runs. It stops by itself when idle.
Changing a request's method always needs the debugger.
Shortcuts and right-click
| Shortcut | Does |
|---|---|
| Alt+Shift+D | Open Utils Grid |
| Alt+Shift+C | Open the color picker |
| Alt+Shift+S | Pick an element, then screenshot it |
| Alt+Shift+L | Pick a section, then collect its links |
Rebind at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.
Right-click anything and open Utils Grid for these actions. Entries only appear when they apply to what you clicked.
| You right-click | Action |
|---|---|
| Anywhere | Pick color, Screenshot an element, Collect links in a section, Export a table |
| Selected text | Base64 encode selection, Base64 decode selection, URL encode selection, URL decode selection |
| Selected text | Hash selection (with the algorithm you last used, SHA-256 at first) |
| Selected text | Check a file against this hash: opens Hashing in File mode with the selected hash in the compare box and the algorithm picked from its length (32 characters MD5, 40 SHA-1, 64 SHA-256, 96 SHA-384, 128 SHA-512) |
| Selected text | Make a QR code from selection, Convert selected timestamp (epoch seconds or milliseconds, or a date), Explain selected cron expression |
| A link | Make a QR code for this link |
| An image | Read QR code in this image |
| A text box | Fill this field (a value that suits it), Generate a password… (a card beside the field with the generator's options and a Use button, for a password or any other field; it can also fill the confirm-password field) and Fill every field in this form |
Your selection is handed to the panel and shown in the tool; nothing is sent anywhere.
Settings and backup
Theme, data locale (for the form filler), engine defaults, tool visibility. Config → Export saves settings, rules and form profiles as JSON; Import restores them.
Privacy
Everything runs on your device. See Privacy policy.
Troubleshooting
- A tool says the page is restricted: see the list above.
- The tool can't see an element: it may be inside a closed shadow root or a cross-origin frame; try Selection or Element scope.
- "Debugging this tab" banner stays: open Settings → Engines; the session ends after the idle time, or press Cancel on Chrome's banner.
- Another debugger is attached: close DevTools for that tab and retry.