Home › Compare
Highlight Harvest vs Highlight Tool
Both add-ons let you name your highlight colors and pull the highlighted text out of a Google Doc. Here is where they differ, so you can pick the right one.
| Highlight Harvest | Highlight Tool | |
|---|---|---|
| Google permission it needs | Only the document you have open | See, edit, create, and delete all your Google Docs |
| Named highlighters | ✓ up to 10, saved across every doc | ✓ highlighter sets |
| Apply a highlight in one click | ✓ | ✓ |
| Extract highlights grouped by color | ✓ in reading order | ✓ by color or by sequence |
| Where the extracted text goes | Sidebar list, clipboard, or the end of the same doc | A new document |
| Picks up highlights made before installing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Code last reworked | 2026, actively maintained | January 2018; a June 2026 patch fixed start-up issues |
| Price | $9 once, 14-day free trial | Free |
Highlight Tool facts were read from its Google Workspace Marketplace listing and reviews on 2026-09-09. It is a third-party product with no connection to Geary Works. If something here is out of date, email support@highlightharvest.com and it will be corrected.
Pick Highlight Tool if
- You want a free tool and do not mind granting access to every document in your Drive.
- You want the extracted highlights in a separate new document rather than in the doc itself.
Pick Highlight Harvest if
- You work with documents you cannot share broadly: client work, legal drafts, student records, unpublished manuscripts. The add-on can only see the doc that is open.
- You want the summary inside the same document, ready to copy into notes, an email, or a review.
- You would rather pay $9 once for something that is kept working than depend on a free tool whose recent reviews say it stopped.
The permission difference, in plain terms
When you install an add-on, Google shows a permission screen. Highlight Tool asks to "see, edit, create, and delete all your Google Docs documents." That is the broad Drive scope, and it stays granted until you revoke it. Highlight Harvest asks for the narrow scope Google calls "current document only," which is limited to the file open in that tab. It also asks to show its sidebar, which is how every sidebar add-on works. Nothing about your document is sent anywhere; the only network call is a license check that carries the key and nothing else.
Highlight Harvest does all of this from a sidebar in Google Docs: named highlighters, one-click apply, and a harvest button that gathers every highlight into a list grouped by color. $9 once, 14-day free trial →