Loom lets you quickly record videos of your screen and/or camera (and voice) – and share a video link with others in an instant.

Loom is easily in my top 5 most-used and favorite tools – to communicate with students, clients, and coworkers. It’s versatile and SO fast to use.

Loom is a desktop application as well as a browser plugin.

Oh, and it’s free. (Up to certain very reasonable limits. And then you’ll be addicted and willing to pay for the privilege. #worthit)

And if you’re not already using the “Insert Loom Recording button in your Gmail webmail, your Loom game is about to get even faster and more snazzy.

  1. You have to have the Loom extension installed on your browser. Here’s the link to the Loom Chrome extension. Once the extension is installed, and provided you have at least one video in your Loom account, you’ll see the Loom logo right next to your Send Button in Gmail webmail.
  2. To use it, put your cursor where you want the video to be inserted, and click the Loom logo button and choose “Insert Last Recording“. It will not only insert a small, clickable screenshot of your video, but also the title of your video and a text link to the video.

The inserted screenshot of the video makes you look like a pro, and it’s brilliantly quick to add that Loom link to your outgoing emails. Try it out!

Want to Get to Inbox Zero and stay on top of your emails? Check out the mini-course Get Productive with Gmail.

p.s. (Hack #2) This blog post is part of a series called Top 40 Google Hacks You’ll Wish You’d Been Using All Along. Download the whole handy Top 40 Google Hacks PDF.