If you use Chrome and love listening to your favorite tracks on Google Music, then you should give GoogleMusic For Chrome a try. This nifty little extension adds a button to your toolbar that, when clicked, reveals controls for playing, pausing, and skipping to the next song within a pop-up. You can use these controls to conveniently control playback without having to constantly switch tabs. Moreover, it displays the track title and artist name at the bottom of the pop-up, and allows you to control playback through keyboard shortcuts, provided the pop-up is open.

When you’re working online and don’t want to switch tabs to change a song, click the pop-up to launch Google Music in a new tab. If no track is being played, you can press the space bar or click play to start music playback.

The pop-up also displays the track title and artist’s name. With it, you can play/pause songs, like/dislike and skip songs without having to switch between multiple tabs.

The extension’s Options allow you to enable a Lazy Mode, which moves the playback controls to the top of the pop-up, reducing the distance you have to move your mouse (a testament to it being a mode for the truly lazy). In addition to that, you will find keyboard shortcuts to pause, skip, like and dislike a song.

The downside is that you still have to open Google Music in a tab, since the music stops playing if you close it. Converting the extension into an app that runs constantly in the background would solve this problem. Overall, GoogleMusic For Chrome is a slick extension that comes in handy, especially when you don’t want to bother with switching between tabs/windows for controlling playback. We’ve covered several similar extensions for various online music services in the past (YouTube, for the most part), but this is a first for Google Music, and we urge you to give it a try.

Install Google Music For Google Chrome