TextLighterHighlights like a real marker
Every match gets a soft, hand-drawn stroke — one slow wave across the line, feathered edges, ends that taper off. It looks like a person highlighted the page, not a machine.
Natural jagged edgesEvery word that matters, lit up as you read.
TextLighter is a free Chrome extension that highlights the words and phrases you save — in soft, hand-drawn marker strokes — on every web page you visit. No account. No tracking. Nothing leaves your device.
Coming soon to the Chrome Web Store.
- Free
- No account, no ads
- Desktop Chrome
- Works offline
Serendipity
Serendipity is an unplanned, fortunate discovery. The word was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754, after a Persian fairy tale about three princes who kept making serendipitousA “happy” accident, found by chance discoveries by accident — finding things they were not looking for.
It is the opposite of looking something up. You were reading about something else entirely, and the answer found you.
Preview — the submenu opens from “This highlight”.
Try it right here
This page is the demo.
No install needed for a taste of it. Select any words in the passage below, then press “Highlight this word” — on a real page you would right-click and choose it from the TextLighter menu instead. Hover a highlighted word to see its description.
There is a particular kind of luck in reading widely: you follow one sentence and end up somewhere you never planned to go. The word for that is serendipityA “happy” accident, found by chance — a happy accident, found by chance.
Some readers keep a stack of books they mean to read and never do. The Japanese have a word for that too: tsundokuBuying books and not reading them. It sits on the shelf, patient, judging no one.
And then there is the oldest advice in the book: carpe diemSeize the day. Seize the day — not tomorrow, not when the list is clear, but now, while the light is good and the page is open.
Highlight the words that stop you. Give them a colour, a group, a note to your future self. The next time they appear — on any page, or on just this page for a standalone highlight — they will be waiting for you, already lit up.
This is a small taste, running entirely in your browser. The real extension highlights your words on every web page you visit — and remembers them. How your words stay private.
Everything it does
Small on the surface. Thorough underneath.
TextLighter stays out of your way while you read — and keeps every list, colour and note exactly where you put it.
Right-click, nothing else
Select a word, right-click, and choose “Highlight this word” or “Add to group”. Nothing pops up when you merely select text — the page stays clean until you ask for something.
Chrome native context menuHover for the meaning
Write a short description when you save a word — a definition, a translation, a note to yourself — and it appears as a plain text tooltip when you hover the highlight. Nothing else. No cards, no buttons.
Description on hover onlyGroups with their own colours
Keep words in groups — Reading, Japanese, Quotes, whatever you like. A new group gets a colour you choose; every word in it follows that colour. Rename groups, drag them into order, mute one for a while, or flag a word as urgent so it gets a dotted underline.
8 colours + any custom colourStandalone highlights, page by page
Some passages matter on one page only. Highlight a phrase as a standalone and it lights up every occurrence of that phrase on that page — and stays on this device only, never synced.
Every occurrence, one pageYour list, in your hands
Export everything — words, groups, colours, descriptions, standalone highlights — as one CSV file, in the same format Import reads. Import CSV, Excel or older JSON backups, review what will change first, and re-importing the same file never duplicates anything.
CSV · Excel · JSONSyncs through your Chrome
Signed into Chrome? Your groups and words travel with your own Chrome sync to your other devices — per item, newest wins, so two devices editing at once don’t clobber each other. Too big to sync, and it simply stays on this device with a plain note.
Your Chrome sync onlyPause it, undo it, find it
Pause all highlighting, or pause it on just this site. Jump between matches on a page with Previous and Next, filter by group, and undo a removal for two minutes if you change your mind.
Pause · Prev / Next · UndoLight, dark, or your system
The popup and manager follow your choice — Light, Dark, or System — and the choice stays on this device only. The highlight colours themselves never change with the theme, so your words always look the way you picked them.
Theme stays on this device
How it works
Three steps, then it just reads with you.
1
Add it to Chrome
Install TextLighter from the Chrome Web Store. It asks for just three permissions — storage, activeTab and contextMenus — plus access to the pages you read (http and https) so it can highlight there. Pin it to your toolbar if you like.
2
Save a word where you find it
Select any word on any web page, right-click, and add it to a group or highlight it on the spot. Or type it straight into the popup. Give it a colour and a short description while it’s fresh.
3
Keep reading
From then on, that word lights up wherever it appears on the web pages you visit. Hover it to remember why you saved it. Manage, mute or remove words from the popup or the full manager — and flag words as urgent in the manager — whenever you like.
Colours
Eight colours, or any colour at all.
Every group and every standalone highlight gets a colour. Pick one of the eight, or open the colour picker and choose any colour you like. Words in a group follow their group’s colour — unless an imported file gave a word its own colour — so a page stays calm instead of noisy.
The colours stay readable in dark mode too — each one has a light and a dark version, tuned so the words stay legible on light and dark pages alike.
Import & export
Bring a list. Take a list.
Starting from a spreadsheet? Import a CSV or Excel file — there’s a template to copy — and TextLighter shows you exactly what will be added, skipped or updated before anything changes. Leaving? Export downloads everything you have, in the same format, so your words are never locked in.
textlighter-export.csv .csv .xlsx .json
Download the import template
Manager
One tidy place for all of it
Open “Manage words” and everything is there: groups you can rename, drag into order, mute or delete; words you can flag, search and edit; a sync meter that shows how much of your Chrome sync quota your list uses; and suggestions of words from the page you’re on (or the most recent page, if the current tab can’t be reached) — shown once, never stored.
You can also set per-site rules, and choose whether highlighting applies inside code blocks.
Your words stay yours.
TextLighter makes no network requests of its own, runs no analytics, shows no ads and has no account. Words can reveal interests, health, job searches or politics in aggregate — that is why there is no server and no logging.
Read the full privacy policy- Everything stored on your device
- Sync only through your own Chrome sync
- No analytics, no ads, no account
- Works fully offline
Questions
Asked, answered.
Yes — free, no account, no ads.
Because it has to be present on the page you are reading to highlight your words there. It sends nothing anywhere and shows nothing until you save a word, and it makes no network requests of its own at all. The permissions are three — storage, activeTab and contextMenus — plus access to the web pages you read (http and https).
No — deliberately not. Selecting text shows nothing. You add a word only when you right-click and choose to, or type it into the popup. Reading stays reading.
Nowhere. They are stored in your browser’s local storage on your device. If you are signed into Chrome, a copy also travels through your own Chrome sync to your other devices — never to a developer server. Standalone highlights never sync at all; they stay on the device where you made them. Full privacy policy.
Yes. Export downloads everything — words, groups, colours, descriptions, standalone highlights — as one CSV file, in the same format Import reads. Import accepts CSV, Excel (.xlsx) and older JSON backups, and shows a review sheet before confirming, so re-importing the same file never duplicates anything.
No. Chrome on phones cannot run extensions, so TextLighter is desktop Chrome only.
The popup offers Undo for two minutes after a removal. Deleting a group or word also records a tombstone for sync, so your other devices remove it too; tombstones are pruned after 90 days.
Start highlighting what matters.
Free. No account. Your words stay on your device.
Add to Chrome — freeComing soon to the Chrome Web Store.
Desktop Chrome · Version 1.7.25