Using an iPhone with a Chromebook certainly seems a bit out of place. Obviously, Android makes a bit more sense given the intimate connection they both have with the Google ecosystem. However, many loyal iPhone users turn to the simplicity and affordability of a Chromebook for work or school tasks. It takes some effort, and you're going to need to subscribe to iCloud and be connected to the web if you want the best syncing experience, but you can use an iPhone with your Chromebook and be happy about it.

One key to this experience is to take your Google life and Google apps from ChromeOS and sync them with your iPhone. If you're a hardcore Apple can, you also can take your iPhone life and Apple apps and sync them with ChromeOS through the power of a paid iCloud subscription and iCloud.com. This can be easy in some instances since Google offers most of its important apps on iOS. Or, when Apple offers iCloud.com versions of the apps you use on your iPhone.

How to use an iPhone with your Chromebook

Use Google Drive to sync your files

Google Drive open on the Files app on a Chromebook showing a blank page

In order to truly commit to a Chromebook as your main machine, you really need to use Google Drive as your main cloud storage solution. This doesn't mean that you can't use iCloud for backups of your iOS devices, but for documents, photos, and other essential work data, you'll want to store these in Google Drive. Thankfully, Google Drive has an easy-to-access iOS app that you can download on your iPhone. Most apps also allow you to easily save things to Google Drive, so this isn't a huge inconvenience.

  1. Install Google Drive on your iPhone.
  2. Upload and sync your important files by clicking Files and then the (+) button.
  3. Choose what you want to upload from your iPhone.
  4. On your Chromebook, open the Files app.
  5. Look for whatever you uploaded in the Google Drive section.

If you don't want to go the Google way and already use iCloud Drive, you can simply sync the files you want through iCloud Drive on your iPhone on the iOS Files app, then access these files by going to iCloud.com in your web browser and choosing iCloud.

Use Google Workspace apps

Google Docs open on a Chromebook showing a blank document

If you want a seamless productivity experience between your iPhone and Chromebook, you'll want to install all the Google Workspace apps on your iPhone. Use Google Docs for composing documents, Google Sheets for spreadsheets, and so on. The good news is all of these apps sync seamlessly to your Google Drive. This is also helpful if you happen to use an iPad as well (which is still the best true tablet), as you can get work done across all of your devices without missing a beat.

  1. Install the Google Sheets, Google Docs, and Google Slides apps on your iPhone.
  2. Open the app and begin work on your documents.
  3. The documents will be saved to your Google Drive.
  4. Open Google Sheets, Docs, or Slides on your Chromebook by looking for it in the launcher.

To go the Apple way of doing things, you can simply use Pages, Numbers, and Keynote on your iPhone to handle office documents and save them to iCloud. Then, on your Chromebook, go to iCloud.com and launch the Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps to pick up where you left off.

Sync your notes

The Apple notes app on iCloud on a Chromebook

Both iOS and Android have their own default note apps. The Apple app is simply called Notes, while Google's app is named Google Keep. If you want to sync your Apple Notes to your Chromebook, all you need to do is make sure that you have your notes set up to sync with iCloud. You can then go to iCloud.com in your browser and access the notes.

  1. On your iPhone, open the settings app.
  2. Choose your profile picture at the top.
  3. Choose iCloud.
  4. Choose Show all.
  5. Make sure the toggle for Notes is on.
  6. Once you start a new note, it'll sync to iCloud.
  7. Open Chrome on your Chromebook and go to iCloud.com
  8. Choose Notes and you'll see all your notes.

Of course, if you don't want to use Apple Notes, you can use Google Keep on your iPhone instead. You'll have to download the app, and then launch Google Keep on your iPhone and take your notes. Then, on your Chromebook, open the Google Keep app, to see those same notes.

Sync your bookmarks

A list of bookmarks in Google Chrome

As for bookmarks, you can now set Chrome as your default browser on iOS. This was actually not possible a few years ago, which made it more difficult to sync browser history, bookmarks, and other important information between an iPhone and a Chromebook. But now, you can simply download and install Chrome, and use it on iOS and your Chromebook.

  1. Download Google Chrome on your iPhone.
  2. Sign in with your Google Account, the same one used on your Chromebook.
  3. Go to the iOS Settings app.
  4. Scroll down to Chrome.
  5. Choose Default Browser app.
  6. Set it to Google Chrome.

Photos

A list of bookmarks in Google Chrome

Apple and Google both have incredibly popular Photos apps. As long as you subscribe to iCloud, and have the storage space, you can access the photos from your iPhone through the web and iCloud.com on your Chromebook.

  1. Open the iOS Settings app.
  2. Go down to Photos.
  3. Turn iCloud Photos on.
  4. Head to iCloud.com in Chrome.
  5. Choose Photos to access your photos.

If you don't want to use iCloud and want to go the Google Route, you can go with the Google Photos solution here to sync your photos to your Chromebook and have your iPhone upload all its photos to Google Photos instead. Just download Google Photos on your iPhone. Then, tap your profile icon, and choose Turn on backup to upload your iPhone's photos to Google Photos. You can then launch the Google Photos app on your Chromebook.

And if Google doesn't work for you, then a third-party app like OneDrive will work, too. If you subscribe to Microsoft 365, you'll get 1TB of storage with your plan. You can choose to back up your iPhone's photos to OneDrive. Then, when backed up, you can visit the OneDrive website on your Chromebook and view them in the gallery, or even download them.

Use other messaging apps other than iMessage

Telegram on Chrome

Perhaps the trickiest thing to handle when using an iPhone and Chromebook together is messaging. With an Android device, you can get all of your text messages from your phone on your Chromebook instantly. This isn't really possible with an iPhone unfortunately, and you also can't use Messages for the Web by Google since you need to install the Google Messages app — which is not available on iOS.

One solution for messaging integration on my iPhone is to use cross-platform messaging apps. Examples include Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat. These work across the iOS and ChromeOS/Android ecosystems, but you'll end up having to convince your favorite friends or family to use these apps to talk to you off iMessage. At the end of the day, it's not the biggest deal if you can't answer every message on your Chromebook, but you should be able to receive some of them if you use these popular apps.

Other tips and tricks

Perhaps the biggest annoyance for many iPhone users is the lack of AirDrop or AirPlay on a Chromebook. The truth is, there really isn't a great alternative to AirDrop when using your iPhone and Chromebook together. Google has improved things a lot on the Android/Chromebook side with the creation of Nearby Share, but that, unfortunately, doesn't work with an iPhone and Chromebook. The best solution to this problem is to simply use the aforementioned cloud services to move things between your devices.

On the other hand, there's a somewhat nice solution for replacing AirPlay with your Chromebook. You can grab a Chromecast and easily cast videos from your iPhone to a TV, speaker, etc. This isn't a perfect replacement for AirPlay since you need to buy additional hardware, but Chromecast is actually more robust since you can add it to a number of different output devices.

Overall, you can be very happy using a Chromebook and iPhone together. There are some small issues that you'll need to get over, particularly related to AirDrop and messaging integration issues. If you can handle those small things, you shouldn't have any problems syncing your work, photos, and notes between the two devices. If you're looking to get into the ChromeOS ecosystem, check out our picks for the best Chromebooks available at Best Buy.