ExpandIt User Manual

Installation

Visit the Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-ons, or Edge Add-ons
Click Add to browser and confirm the permissions
Pin the extension icon to your toolbar for quick access

How It Works

ExpandIt continuously looks for horizontally overflowing elements on a page — areas whose content is wider than the visible width, carrying a horizontal scrollbar or simply clipped, such as code blocks, wide tables, and long logs.

When it finds one, ExpandIt shows a small expand button at the element's top-right corner. Click the button and the content is revealed in full using the current expand mode; click again to restore the original layout. The button follows the element as you scroll or resize the window, and hides itself when the element is no longer visible or no longer overflows.

By default ExpandIt only runs on the sites you choose, so set up its scope right after installing.

Where It Runs

Click the toolbar icon to open the ExpandIt side panel. The home page has two sections:

Function Switch — With Enable by default on, ExpandIt runs everywhere except blacklisted sites; with it off, it runs only on whitelisted sites
Site list — Shows the blacklist or the whitelist depending on the current mode. Click Add Current Site next to the heading to add the domain of the current page; use the icon on the right of a row to remove it

Expand Modes

Go to Settings → Features → Expand Mode in the side panel to set the global default:

Expand Area — Keeps the original font size and stretches the element evenly to both sides. Recommended for code blocks and monospaced content
Shrink Font — Keeps the area size and scales the font down so everything fits. Recommended when you want to preserve the page layout
Balanced — Scales the font to 90% first, then expands the area only if the content still overflows. A good fit for mixed content

Per-Site Customization (Pro)

Under Settings → Features → Per-Site Customization, you can give an individual site its own behavior:

Click Add Current Site to create a rule for the current domain; the rule starts from your current global expand mode
Each rule has its own expand mode and an Auto expand switch — with it on, overflowing content expands as soon as it is detected, with no click needed
Site rules take precedence over the global default; sites without a rule keep using it

Syncing Across Devices

ExpandIt can sync your expand mode, site lists, per-site rules, and language and theme preferences through storage you own, so every computer you use shares the same settings.

Under Settings → Storage, enter your S3-compatible bucket, endpoint, and access credentials step by step, then click Test & Save. Once the test passes, turn syncing on.

When you save, the browser asks whether the extension may reach that storage address; the connection works only after you allow it.

Your storage credentials never leave this device. Without a storage configured, everything stays on this device and no feature is affected.

FAQ

The expand button does not appear

Check that the site is in scope: in whitelist mode you need to add the current site first, and in blacklist mode make sure it has not been blacklisted
ExpandIt only shows the button for elements that actually overflow horizontally
Tabs that were already open when the extension was installed or updated need to be reloaded once

The Add Current Site button is disabled

The current page is not a regular web page (a built-in browser page, for example), or the domain is already on the list

Settings from my other device did not show up

Make sure syncing is on for both devices and that they point at the same bucket
Syncing pulls on a fixed interval, so a change you just made may take a short while to appear on the other device

Content still overflows after expanding

Try a different expand mode — Shrink Font and Balanced usually fit more content
Some elements have CSS constraints of their own that limit further expansion