Dock: Stops Letting Google Meet Links Open a New Window Every Time

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:00:51 +0000

title: Dock: Stops Letting Google Meet Links Open a New Window Every Time
published: true
date: 2026-09-25 07:46:18 UTC
tags: GoogleWorkspace,GoogleMeet,chromeextension,Productivity

canonical_url: https://blog.nandan.dev/dock-stops-letting-google-meet-links-open-a-new-window-every-time

Three Workspaces, infinite windows

I have three Google Workspaces: personal Gmail, my own Workspace, and my company's. That means three separate PWAs for Mail, three for Meet, three for Calendar, and so on down the line.

Here's the thing: every time a Meet link landed in my chat, it opened a brand new window. Not focused an existing one — opened a new one. Multiply that by three accounts and a normal day of meetings, and you end up with a wall of Meet windows and duplicate Gmail tabs you can't tell apart. It got really hard to manage.

What I built

So I built Dock. If you click a link and there's already a matching PWA open, Dock redirects you to that window instead of spawning a new one. Gmail, Meet, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, or Chat — same idea for all of them. Holding Shift bypasses it for that one click, for the times you actually want a fresh window.

Dock also helps me manage all my open tabs. Say I've got six Meet windows open across accounts — I can close any of them, for any account, from any screen. It keeps everything decluttered, the mental load is reduced. You don't need five mailboxes open just to check personal email once. One mailbox for personal, one for work, one for the side Workspace — or whatever your split looks like.

And I gave it a cute mascot: Meet Doc-k

Getting the account right

The tricky part isn't catching the link. It's knowing which account's window to send you to. Dock routes to the window for the account the link actually names — via authuser=, /u/N/, or a stored mapping — and it keeps a window's identity correct even after you switch accounts from inside the PWA itself. It reuses the already-open window for that account instead of spawning a duplicate.

The switcher

Press Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Space and you get a fuzzy-searchable popup listing every app window, grouped by account. Live calls are surfaced first. One-click close, per window or per whole account.

A few other things it does:

Each login gets an automatically assigned, editable colour tag, shown on the toolbar icon and in the switcher.
You can add your own custom rules for apps Dock doesn't know about — Figma, Notion, whatever — with a match pattern, target behaviour, and account strategy.
Built-in Google Workspace rules can be disabled but not deleted.
Rules import/export as JSON.

No network requests

It makes no network requests — nothing it does ever leaves your device. All the routing logic runs locally against windows Chrome already knows about.

Try it

I haven't put it in the Chrome Store yet. Not sure I will. So clone the repo, build it yourself, and load it as an unpacked extension: github.com/sirius93/dock.

That's the whole idea, and so far it's worked wonders for me. If it works for you too, star the repo or leave feedback — and if enough people find it worth the hassle, I'll look at making it live.

Unlock Gemini’s True Potential: The One Setting You Need to Change Right Now

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 03:09:49 +0000

If you have used Google’s Gemini and found it impressive but ultimately disconnected from your actual work, you aren't alone. Many users describe the initial experience as talking to a very smart stranger—it knows the capital of France and can write a haiku, but it knows absolutely nothing about you, your projects, or your schedule.

However, the difference between Gemini being a novelty and a productivity powerhouse often comes down to a single, often overlooked toggle in the settings: The Google Workspace Extension.

The Problem: The "Generic" AI Trap

Out of the box, most AI chatbots operate in a silo. If you want Gemini to summarize a meeting note you wrote last week, you usually have to find the document, copy the text, paste it into the chat, and then ask your question. This friction defeats the purpose of having an intelligent assistant; you end up doing the heavy lifting of data retrieval yourself.

The Fix: Connecting the Dots

The "tiny adjustment" that transforms the experience is granting Gemini access to your personal Google ecosystem. By enabling the Google Workspace extension, you allow the AI to securely "read" your Drive, Gmail, and Docs.

How to enable it:

Open Gemini (on the web or mobile app).
Go to Settings.
Select Extensions (or "Connected Apps").
Toggle on Google Workspace.

How It Changes Your Workflow

Once this connection is made, Gemini stops being a generic chatbot and starts acting like a personalized executive assistant. Here is what becomes possible:

Instant Document Retrieval: Instead of digging through folders, you can ask, "Summarize the marketing plan I wrote last month," or "What were the key takeaways from the Project Alpha doc?" Gemini finds the specific file and generates the answer instantly.
Email Intelligence: You can stop searching for keywords in your inbox. Commands like "Check my emails for the electric bill due date" or "Summarize the email thread with the design team" yield immediate, specific results.
Cross-App Functionality: If you use Google Keep for lists, you can ask specific questions like, "What is on my shopping list?" or "Retrieve my inventory list from Keep," without ever opening the app.

The Privacy Question

Naturally, giving an AI access to your private emails and documents raises security concerns. Google has stated that when you use the Workspace extension:

Your content is used only to answer your specific prompt.
Your personal data is not used to train the public Gemini model.
The data remains within your secure enterprise or personal environment.

Verdict

If you have felt frustrated that AI tools feel "disconnected" from your reality, the Google Workspace extension is the missing link. It unifies your digital life—Drive, Docs, Gmail, and Keep—under one conversational interface.

By making this one small adjustment, you stop shouting questions into a void and start interacting with an assistant that actually knows who you are and what you are working on.

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