How To Enable Session Syncing In Chrome

Posted on 27. May, 2011 by Nicholas Greene in Chrome, Tutorials

Chrome session syncing is a rather useful function that allows you to access your open tabs and browser windows across multiple platforms and systems. Say you’re on your desktop computer, and you’re looking at a few web pages in Chrome. With session syncing, you can open up the exact same web pages on your laptop with the click of a button.  What’s more, it’s incredibly easy to set up. Well, easier than it used to be. You used to either have to use command switches or download a plugin. Now, however; you simply have to do the following:

Step 1: Open The Chrome Options Menu

See that little wrench in the upper right hand corner? Click on it, and then select options from the dropdown menu that appears. That’ll load your Chrome options page in a new tab.

Step 2: Access The “Personal Stuff” Tab

Pretty self explanatory. You’ll see three links on the left hand side of the page: Basics, Personal Stuff, Under The Hood. Click on Personal Stuff.

Step 3: Click on the “Set up Sync” Button

It’s right at the top of the page. Can’t miss it.

Step 4: Log In With Your Google Account Information.

If you don’t have a Google account, create one here.

Step 5: Configure Syncing

Here’s where it gets a bit more complicated- but not much. You’ll be presented with two tabs- Data Types and Encryption. The first tab’s pretty self explanatory- you can customize what you want Chrome to sync between browsers. The second tab merits a bit of explanation, however. Basically, Encryption adds a bit of extra security to the syncing process, generating a cryptographic key from your Google account. You can also choose to set up your own sync password/passphrase, seperate from your Google Account password.

That’s it! You’re done!

That was pretty easy, wasn’t it?

But What’s The Point?

Now, granted,this functionality is more of a novelty if you’re not using a platform centered around cloud computing; or at the very least, if you’re not using web apps.  It’s when cloud computing comes into the picture that it’s way more useful. See, I always carry around a USB stick with me. It’s got all my most important files on it, everything I happen to be working on at any given point in time. I do this so that I can plug it into any computer, wherever I am, and resume working on any of my projects whenever I see fit.

Session syncing kind of makes it obsolete. Pretty much any system that has the Chrome or Chromium browser installed on it is fair game, and can be used to access any files I’ve stored on the cloud. Pretty useful, no?

Tags: Chrome browser, Chromium browser