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Google Chrome prepares ‘Desktop Sharing Hub’ with copy link, QR code, other shortcuts

The omnibox in Google Chrome is a very flexible and useful tool, and soon, it may add another useful menu. A new “Desktop Sharing Hub” menu in Google Chrome could provide faster, easier access to shortcuts for copying links, generating QR codes, and more.

This new tool shows up in the latest Chrome Canary releases (via Chrome Story) on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Chrome OS. The feature doesn’t seem to have a finalized name at this point but is referred to as the “Desktop Sharing Hub” within the chrome://flags menu. Google also refers to the feature as the “Chrome Sharing Menu” in the same section.

Desktop Sharing Hub in Omnibox

Enables the Chrome Sharing Hub in the omnibox for desktop. – Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS

#sharing-hub-desktop-omnibox

When enabled, this feature adds a “+” icon to the far-right side of the omnibox, which, when pressed, shows various options built into Chrome for sharing pages with others. This includes generating a QR code, casting a tab, saving a page as a static document, and just copying the link. The “Send to your devices” option also appears here when it’s enabled (not shown below as Chrome was in signed-out mode).

This feature just showed up in v92 of Chrome Canary, meaning that, under the best circumstances, this is a while out from a full release. This version won’t even make it to the beta channel until June, stable in July. Still, this looks like a neat and useful tool for Chrome users that we hope to see released. As it stands today, it’s a fully functional feature.

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