Core How-Tos

Use the Next Up panel

The Next Up by URLflows extension keeps a countdown to your next meeting one click away. Here is how to read it, change how it shows your day, and decide when it speaks up.

Open it where you want it

Click the toolbar icon. The panel's header has buttons to Open in the side panel and Open in its own window, so you can move it without going to Settings. Toolbar icon opens in Settings chooses what a click on the icon does from then on.

The same header opens The Original Next Up, the full page, and Settings.

Your next meeting

The next meeting sits at the top, with its alert level, its title, the time left as one big number, and when and where it is. From there you can:

  • Press Join when the meeting has a link, or press Ctrl+Shift+J (Command+Shift+J on a Mac) anywhere in Chrome.
  • Copy the meeting link, or Open in Google Calendar.
  • Skip this one to show the one after it. Skipped meetings are forgotten a day after they end.

The time left also shows on the toolbar icon, in the color of the alert, so you can check it without opening anything.

Choose a view of your day

The first button in the panel's header is Change the view. Each place the panel opens keeps its own choice:

  • Vertical timeline: your day from top to bottom, with a line at now.
  • Agenda: a calendar page, with a card per meeting.
  • Steps: today as a route from what's done to what's ahead.
  • List: what's coming, in order.

The Horizontal timeline is your day across the hours, on a page of its own: open it from a meeting's menu or Settings → Horizontal timeline. Drag, scroll or use the arrow keys to move through it.

Decide which events count

Open Settings → What's shown. Under Which events count you can leave out meetings you declined, meetings you haven't answered, and events with no meeting link. Look ahead sets how far the panel looks for your next meeting, and Show tomorrow adds tomorrow's meetings under today's.

Set your alerts

Open Settings → Alerts. There are three levels before each meeting: Get ready, Soon and Starting.

  • Lead times and colors: the minutes before a meeting each level begins, and its color. Set a level to 0 to turn it off.
  • Chime: a soft note, two clear notes or nothing when a level begins. It plays only while the panel is open.
  • Notifications: a system notification that names the meeting, with a Join button when it has a link. These come from Chrome, so they show even when no panel is open. Choose At Get ready, At Soon or At Starting.

Related guides

See Pin meetings and see your free time, and Install the Next Up extension if you haven't connected your calendar yet.