These days, productivity is very important. With the pandemic raging on, you have to balance home life with work from home life, and every second of your day now counts. During this time, one Microsoft product and feature that I found quite useful is Collections in Microsoft Edge.
I’ve been using the feature, which lets you “collect” webpages, for both work and for personal use and access them later at quick glance. I found that it’s the productivity tech you didn’t know you needed. Here’s why.
What is Collections?
If you’re not already familiar with Collections, it’s time for an explainer. Collections in Microsoft Edge is a feature that’s available natively in the web browser. It has its own icon in the upper right corner of the screen, but you might not know about it.
When you click it, you’re able to add a webpage to Collections. You can then keep track of your ideas from the web. As Microsoft notes, that can be “whether you’re shopping, planning a trip, collecting notes for research or lesson plans, or just want to pick up where you left off.”
We have an in-depth guide to Collections that can help you get started if you’re looking for more information.
Why is Collections so useful for my productivity?
Now comes the question, why is Collections so useful for me? Well, for myself, a writer, there are lots of reasons why. When I write a review or am researching a topic for a story, I like to have a single place to keep my thoughts down. Typically, I create an outline in Word, do my research in Edge, and then paste links back into Word.
But when Collections arrived, that changed. With Collections, instead of populating my favorites bar with websites, and pasting things in Word that I find relevant, I add them to my Collections hub to better organize my thoughts. I can create a specific collection for a topic and then save it. I can even add notes to that Collection by simply clicking the Add Note button. When I do that, I can organize my thoughts in a more coherent matter, with the webpage open in front of me.
But Collections goes beyond that, too. Sometimes, I like to cook new foods, and thanks to the Collections feature, I can look up a recipe on my PC, and then open it on my phone via Microsoft Edge. Collections sync up across devices. No emailing, texting, or bookmarking of links required.
Why can collections be useful for you?
While I’ve already highlighted the productivity and work scenarios, Collections can also be useful for other situations too. Most people use Edge for shopping, and Collections is here to help with that, as well.
As recently announced, Collections now has a “compare price to other retailers ability. To use it, all you need to do is visit a webpage where you see an item you want to buy. Next, add it to Collections. Then, once it’s added, you should see a compare price to other retailers button. This will then show you a list of retailers where the item is available and links to visit them or add it to your Collections for further comparisons. It’s quite nice to have this, especially with the holiday shopping season coming up.
Edge has a lot of other cool features, too
Collections is just the start of features in Microsoft Edge. There’s a lot of other cool features. These include the Immersive Reader, to help you focus on content that you want to read. Additionally, there’s the Read aloud feature, which reads out a webpage for you. Edge also supports the Miracast and DNLA protocols for casting to other devices, too.
Is there a feature that you like about Edge? Let us know in the comments.
