The availability of third-party add-ons for Google Docs, Sheets and Google Slides have certainly made the Google productivity suite more capable and useful. If you haven’t tried them yet, open any Google document or spreadsheet in your Google Drive and look for the extensions menu near Help. Google Workspace users may have to ask their admin to enable support for add-ons for the organization.

For starters, Google add-ons are like extensions for Chrome. Extensions add new features to the Chrome browser and add-ons extend the functionality of Google Office applications.

Anyone can write a Google add-on with some basic programming knowledge for writing HTML and CSS for styling the add-on. The server side code is written in Google Apps Script which is similar to JavaScript but runs on the Google Cloud.

Google Apps Script vs Google Add-ons

Google Add-ons are written in the Google Apps Script language but while regular Google Scripts can work on any document in your Google Drive, add-ons only work against the document or sheet that’s currently open in your browser.

The other big difference is that you can view the source code of regular Google Scripts while in the case of add-ons, the code is hidden from the end user. This helps developers protect their code but a downside is that the user has no clue about what’s happening behind the scenes.

We have seen issues with Chrome extensions and add-ons for Google Docs can be a target as well. For instance, an add-on can possibly email a copy of the current document or sheet to another email address? Or maybe it can share a folder in Google Drive with someone else. The good part is that add-ons listed in Google Workspace have been tested and reviewed by Google and, they go through a security review process if it requires access to sensitive scopes (like sending Gmail or accessing Google Drive).

The Best Add-ons For Google Docs, Sheets and Google Slides

The Google Workspace marketplace lists hundreds of Google add-ons and here are some of favorite ones that you should have in your Google Docs and Sheets. The are compatible with both GSuite and consumer Google accounts.

1. Mail Merge for Gmail - Send personalized emails with emails to multiple email recipients with Mail Merge for Gmail and Google Workspace.
2. Document Studio - Generate certificates, invoices, and other documents automatically from source data in Google Sheets or Google Form submissions.
3. Download Gmail Emails - Download your Gmail messages and attachments in Google Drive for archiving.
4. Email Scheduler for Gmail - Schedule emails inside Gmail for sending later at a specific date and time. Send repetitive emails that go on a recurring schedule.
5. Google Drive Permissions Auditor - Know who has access to your files in Google Drive.
6. Gmail Address Extractor - The add-on extracts the email addresses from the header and body of email messages for preparing a mailing list.
7. Creator Studio for Google Slides - Convert Google Slides presentations to animated GIF and MP4 movies.
8. Notifications for Google Forms - Get Google Forms responses in an email message when people submit your forms. Send customized email notifications to respondents.
9. Email Google Spreadsheet as PDF - Convert and email Google Spreadsheets as PDF, Excel or CSV to multiple people. Email sheets manually or on a recurring schedule.
10. Bulk Gmail Forward - Easily forward one or more email threads from Gmail to any other address.

Related tutorial: How to Create a Google Docs Add-on