The HubSpot Sales Chrome Extension for Gmail and LinkedIn

Every sales rep working out of Gmail and LinkedIn does the same thing several times a day: gets a reply, switches tabs to check HubSpot for the contact's history, logs the email by hand, switches back. Multiply that by every rep on the floor and it is real time, every single day.

The HubSpot Sales Chrome Extension puts the CRM into that workflow instead of making the rep leave it. It logs emails automatically, pulls up a contact's HubSpot record inside Gmail, and adds HubSpot's sales tools directly into Gmail and LinkedIn. This guide covers how to set it up properly, and why it is worth rolling out consistently rather than leaving it to whoever happened to install it.

Why this is a floor-wide decision

The time saved per email is small. Multiplied across every rep, every day, it adds up to a real amount of admin time back. That is the actual case for this extension: a floor of ten or twenty reps saves the same few minutes many times over, every day, for as long as they are selling.

It is also worth being clear about naming. If anyone on the team is still searching internally for "HubSpot Sidekick," that is an old product name the tool has not carried for years. It is the HubSpot Sales Chrome Extension now, and the current help documentation uses that name throughout.

Setting it up

1. Install from the Chrome Web Store

Search the Chrome Web Store for "HubSpot Sales" and click Add to Chrome. You will be asked to grant permissions so HubSpot can read the email addresses in your inbox and match them to CRM records.

2. Connect your inbox

Once installed, click the HubSpot icon in your Chrome toolbar and sign in. In Gmail you will see a HubSpot sidebar appear on the right. HubSpot will ask to connect your personal email, which lets the CRM send emails on your behalf and track replies.

3. Set your log and track defaults

In the extension settings you can configure two separate behaviours: Log, which puts a copy of the email on the contact's timeline in HubSpot, and Track, which notifies you the moment the prospect opens the email or clicks a link.

You can also block specific email addresses or domains from being logged, so personal or unrelated threads do not clutter the CRM.

The sidebar: a contact's record inside your inbox

When you open an email from a prospect, the sidebar automatically pulls their HubSpot record: job title, company, lifecycle stage, recent activity such as pricing page visits or a downloaded whitepaper, and any active deal with its next task.

That means the follow-up can be specific rather than generic. Instead of "just checking in," it can be "I saw you were looking at the growth guide, did you have questions about the implementation phase."

Using it beyond Gmail

LinkedIn

When you are browsing LinkedIn, the extension adds an "Add to HubSpot" button to the profile of anyone not already in your CRM. Click it and they are created as a lead. You can send them a message from LinkedIn and have it log to their timeline without switching tabs.

Any website

If you are on a prospect's site and see a contact email, hovering over it shows whether that contact already exists in your database. This catches lead collision early, the moment two reps are talking to the same person without knowing it.

Sales tools inside Gmail

Templates

Click the Templates icon in Gmail's compose window to insert a saved template, such as a post-meeting follow-up, with the prospect's name and company filled in automatically from placeholders.

Snippets

Snippets are short reusable blocks of text. Type #directions in Gmail and HubSpot replaces it with the full text block, useful for anything you type out the same way every time.

Meeting links

Click Meetings in the extension to insert your booking link. The prospect sees your real availability and books themselves in, and HubSpot creates the calendar event and CRM task automatically.

Documents

Send a proposal or deck through the Documents feature rather than as a raw attachment, and HubSpot will tell you when it was opened and which page got the most attention.

The social side

The HubSpot Social Chrome Extension is a separate, sister tool for the earlier stage of the funnel. Find a good industry article in Chrome and use it to schedule a post to LinkedIn, Facebook or X immediately, which keeps reps visible as informed voices in the industry without needing dedicated social media time.

Troubleshooting

If the extension is not appearing:

1. Confirm Chrome is up to date.
2. Check for conflicts with other sales tools competing for the same sidebar space, and try disabling others.
3. Go to chrome://extensions, toggle HubSpot off and on, or clear the browser cache and cookies.

An Australian number worth having in mind

Around 12 per cent of Australian businesses reported using AI in 2024 to 25, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. That is the size of the field most sales teams are still ahead of, simply by using the automation already sitting inside tools they have paid for, properly.

The bottom line

The HubSpot Sales Chrome Extension brings the CRM into the places reps already work: their inbox and their social feeds. Rolled out consistently across a team rather than left to individual habit, it removes a real amount of admin time and gives every rep the same contact context, without anyone having to remember to open a second tab.

Once lead response is sorted, the natural next step is quoting straight out of HubSpot once the deal is ready, and fitting this into the wider 2026 RevOps playbook.

Want to see this rolled out properly across your team? Get in touch, or read more about how we approach RevOps and HubSpot.

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Happy HubSpotting.