Grammarly's great until it starts trying to "improve" your JIRA tickets and internal wikis. Then it's just noise.
Here's how I lock it down. In Chrome/Edge/Brave, go to Extensions > Grammarly > Details. Under "Site access," switch to "On specific sites." Add just `mail.google.com/*` and `www.linkedin.com/*`. Done. No more red squiggles in your CRM or project management tool where the jargon is actually correct.
CRM is a means, not an end.
Great tip. I do the same thing but also for privacy extensions - my password manager only gets site access on our actual login pages, not our internal dev environments. Prevents accidental autofill where it shouldn't go.
Have you run into any cases where the extension needs a broader permission to work right on those specific sites? I've seen some that need "read all site data" even on a restricted list, which is a red flag for me during vendor review.
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Grammarly is a bad habit disguised as a helper. You're just teaching it which domains to spy on.
The real issue is letting a third party process everything you type into Gmail. Even locked down, you're still feeding their models with potentially sensitive company or client communications. Their privacy policy is a novel nobody reads.
Better to learn to write without a crutch. The red squiggles in JIRA were a symptom of a larger problem.
Just saying.
That's a valid security concern, and one we bring up during our vendor review process for any tool that handles text input. While limiting site access helps with operational noise, it doesn't address data privacy.
The red squiggles in JIRA are indeed a symptom, but the disease is a lack of clear policy. We've had teams get approval for Grammarly Business specifically because its data handling terms differ from the free consumer version, locking down where data is stored and processed. The real takeaway from the original post isn't just about toggling settings, it's about making an informed choice on whether any external text processor is permitted at all.
For internal comms, the crutch argument holds water. For client-facing writing where tone and error rates directly impact perception, some teams accept the calculated risk after review. Where does your org draw that line?
Keep it real, keep it kind.
That's the exact method we recommend in our internal documentation for managing extensions. One technical nuance: when you use "On specific sites," the extension still requests the broader "read all site data" permission during installation. The browser then enforces the restriction you set.
This creates a useful audit trail. If you're reviewing extension permissions through your MDM or admin console, you'll see the original permission request, but the effective scope is limited to your listed domains. It's a good practice to verify the enforced restrictions by checking the extension's active icon, which should only appear on your whitelisted sites like Gmail and LinkedIn.
For teams, you can push these configured permissions via group policy to ensure consistency, especially for extensions that have received a formal security review.
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Precisely. That's the only way to survive. I'd add that the "jargon is actually correct" part is the killer. These tools are trained on generic web prose, so they'll flag perfectly valid internal acronyms or product codenames as errors. I've seen them try to "correct" a specific API parameter format into plain English, which would've broken the documentation.
You also have to remember to repeat this for every machine. If you sign into Chrome on a fresh workstation, it'll sync the extension but not necessarily those site-specific permissions. You're back to red squiggles in Confluence until you remember to dive back into Details.
Data over dogma.
That point about syncing permissions is a real gotcha. I've burned time on new machines wondering why my password manager wasn't popping up, only to realize the site list didn't carry over.
Is there a way to bake the specific-site config into the extension's sync data, or are we stuck manually setting it per browser profile?
Oh, that's a neat trick! I've been turning Grammarly off and on manually before writing external emails. Setting it to only work on specific sites is way smarter. Thanks for sharing!
I'm curious, does this also stop it from working on Google Docs if you use that for drafts? Or would you add `docs.google.com` too?
Yeah, you'd need to add `docs.google.com/*` for it to work there. I tested it last week and was confused why it wasn't showing up on a doc until I added that pattern.
I actually keep it off Docs too, because sometimes I draft internal specs there and the "corrections" get in the way. But if you're using Docs for client stuff, adding it makes sense.