Friday, November 22, 2024

Toast notifications arrive in Chrome desktop

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Key Takeaways

  • Chrome on desktop now has toast messages for link and image copying.
  • The new desktop toast message is minimalist and pops up for a few seconds to confirm a link was copied successfully.
  • The feature was spotted on Chrome 130 for Mac but may expand to Windows and ChromeOS soon.



Google Chrome took some inspiration from Android and is bringing toast messages to the desktop. These appear as subtle little visual confirmations when you copy a link or image, letting you know your action was successful.

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This desktop-centric toast message appears as a tiny pill-shaped overlay with a light-blue background (via 9to5 Google). It hovers over the top of the Chrome address bar for a few seconds with a ‘link copied’ message. The new animation was spotted in Chrome 130 on Mac.


These animations make for a smoother user experience

A screenshot from 9to5Google showing the link copied toast animation.


A toast animation is a simple message that pops up briefly near the bottom of the screen on your Android to tell you about an action the app has taken. It disappears after a few seconds. It’s called a toast message because it resembles toast popping up from the toaster.

Toast messages offer several advantages. For starters, they provide instant feedback to let you know that what you wanted to happen did, indeed, happen. In the case of Chrome for desktop, this will help you know the link (or image) was actually copied.

Secondly, because they vanish in seconds without any user interaction, toast messages are non-intrusive. They are a visual cue and don’t interrupt your workflow or clutter your screen.


The new animation isn’t everywhere yet

The new toast animation was not spotted on Chrome for ChromeOS. This is interesting, because the feature is not entirely new to the Chrome ecosystem. ChromeOS has had various toast notifications for some time now. For example, system events and app activities will often surface a brief toast message. You can also use extensions to receive your Android toast notifications on your Chromebook.

We spotted this update coming back in August, when Google leaker @Leopeva64 dropped the feature, then in beta in Chrome Canary. Since then, we have heard rumors of toast animations coming to Chrome for desktop, including details of what they might look like.

These toast messages are available in Chrome 130 for desktop on Mac, and we anticipate they will be rolled out to other platforms soon, including Windows and ChromeOS. It’s a small change, yet has a big impact on making Chrome a more intuitive and user-friendly browser.


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