Introduction
The main project management tool—or Work OS—I currently use is ClickUp.
I used to be an Asana user, but I switched over around 2019 or 2020.
Today, I’d like to talk about ClickUp’s browser extension.
By the way, one of the reasons I switched was that back then Asana didn’t offer two-factor authentication on its free plan.
Now, however, Asana does include two-factor authentication even on the free plan.
If it had been available at that time, I probably would have stuck with Asana. That’s how much I loved using it—the interface was simple, the animations were cute, and the app itself was great.
Also worth noting, ClickUp still doesn’t support Japanese, while Asana provides solid Japanese localization.
About ClickUp and ASANA, I made a review, so check the article below.
ClickUp’s Chrome Extension
Via ClickUp Chrome Extension, you can access key features without opening a dedicated tab in your browser.
Here’s what you can do:
- Notepad
- Create tasks with any email attached
- Attach any email to any task
- Capture and edit screenshots, then attach them to new or existing tasks
- Track task time
- Bookmark webpages (save URL + optional screenshot as a task)
- Create new tasks
Email-related features work with Gmail and Outlook Web.
I personally rely the most on the screenshot + edit feature and the bookmark function.
The bookmark function, by default, sets the page’s title tag as the task name, and saves the screenshot of the current view along with the URL. Attaching the screenshot is optional.
This comes in handy when making design mood boards: I capture website screenshots, save them as tasks, then later sort them into categories or attach them to whiteboards.
Unlike Evernote or Notion, the extension doesn’t save entire webpages. But, as shown in the example below, you can freely add extra notes into the task description.
Is the ClickUp Chrome Extension Occupying CPU?
Conclusion of the Issue
In short: it’s a Chrome bug.
Reinstalling the extension appears to fix the problem for now.
Details of the Issue
I also use this ClickUp extension on browsers other than Chrome.
This section describes the CPU usage issue I ran into.
Recently, while working in another browser with the ClickUp extension enabled, my computer’s fan suddenly spun up loudly.
When I checked Windows Task Manager, I saw that the browser was consuming a lot of CPU. But Task Manager didn’t show what specifically was causing it.
So, I opened the browser’s built-in Task Manager. That’s when I discovered that both the ClickUp tab and the ClickUp extension were taking up a large amount of CPU.
First, I closed the ClickUp tab—but CPU usage didn’t drop.
Next, I disabled the ClickUp extension, and CPU usage immediately decreased. That confirmed the extension was the cause.
I contacted support, and they were already aware of the issue. According to them, it’s caused by a Chrome bug, not by ClickUp itself.
The workaround suggested was reinstalling the extension.
In my environment, that fixed the issue.
Since the extension is only officially tested on Chrome, I can’t say for sure if behavior is identical across other browsers, but so far, it seems resolved for me.
I hope Chrome/Chromium fixes this bug at the root level. The problem will disappear altogether, then.
