5 Things Chromebooks Can't Do in 2026 (And Workarounds for Each)
Published on by Jim Mendenhall
Hi, my name is Jim, and I’ve been recommending Chromebooks to people for over a decade. I genuinely believe they’re the best choice for most people who spend their computer time browsing the web, checking email, and working in Google Docs. But as someone who’s been covering these machines since day one, I’ve also had plenty of conversations that end with me saying: “Actually, a Chromebook probably isn’t right for you.”
There’s a certain type of tech enthusiast who treats Chromebook limitations as personal challenges to overcome. They’ll tell you that technically you can run Photoshop through various workarounds, or that cloud gaming has mostly solved the gaming problem. And while these workarounds exist, they’re often presented with a level of optimism that doesn’t match the day-to-day reality of actually using them. The gap between “possible” and “practical” matters when you’re spending real money on a computer you need to use every day.
So let me be honest with you about what Chromebooks still can’t do well in 2026, and more importantly, whether any of the available workarounds actually make sense for your particular situation. If you’re on the fence about buying a Chromebook, this is the article I wish someone had written for me before I started recommending them to everyone I knew.
The Adobe Problem Has Only Gotten Worse
If you need Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, or After Effects, a Chromebook is not your machine. I’m not burying the lede here or building to a dramatic reveal. Adobe has never released native Chrome OS versions of their professional creative tools, and there’s no indication they’re even considering it. The company has made its priorities clear by investing heavily in iPad versions of its creative suite while completely ignoring Chrome OS. When even the tablet market gets more attention than your platform, that tells you something about where the industry sees Chromebooks fitting into the creative workflow.
This isn’t about some abstract philosophical preference for one platform over another. If you’re a professional photographer, video editor, or graphic designer, you need the full power of these applications. Your clients expect deliverables that meet professional standards, and you need software that can handle complex projects without compromise. The workarounds that exist for Chromebooks all involve significant tradeoffs that would directly impact your ability to do professional work.
The web-based Adobe apps represent Adobe’s attempt at democratizing creative tools, but they’re dramatically limited compared to their desktop counterparts. Adobe Express and Photoshop on the Web are fine for quick social media edits and basic graphic design, but they won’t replace a real Photoshop workflow for anyone doing serious creative work. You’ll find yourself constantly running into limitations: missing filters, simplified adjustment layers, reduced export options, and a general sense that you’re using the training-wheels version of the real software. For casual users who want to remove a background or add text to an image, these web tools work adequately. For professionals, they’re frustrating reminders of what you can’t do.
The Linux path offers more powerful alternatives, but with substantial learning curves. You can enable Linux on most modern Chromebooks and install applications like GIMP, Inkscape, Kdenlive, or DaVinci Resolve. I’ve never met a Photoshop professional who was genuinely happy with GIMP as a replacement. The interfaces are completely different, keyboard shortcuts don’t transfer, and years of muscle memory become useless overnight. That said, DaVinci Resolve is genuinely excellent for video editing if your Chromebook has enough processing power to run it effectively. Blackmagic has created a professional-grade tool that happens to run on Linux, and if video editing is your primary need, this is worth serious consideration.
The honest take: if Adobe Creative Suite is central to your work or even your serious hobby, buy a Windows laptop or Mac. The workarounds are workarounds, not solutions. This remains one of the clearest dealbreakers for Chromebooks, and no amount of clever workarounds changes the fundamental reality that Adobe has decided Chrome OS isn’t worth their development resources.
Gaming Went From Limited to Nearly Nonexistent
Here’s where things have actually gotten worse for Chromebook users, not better. Google shut down official Steam support for Chrome OS in late 2024, and the gaming situation has gone from “limited but functional” to “almost nonexistent” for anyone who considers themselves even a casual PC gamer. The decision made sense from Google’s perspective since maintaining Steam compatibility required significant engineering resources for a small user base, but it left Chromebook owners who had bought their devices partly for gaming capability in an awkward position.
You can’t run Steam natively anymore. You can’t install AAA titles locally. You can’t play the vast majority of games that require dedicated graphics hardware. Most Chromebooks ship with integrated graphics designed for web browsing and video playback, not for pushing polygons in the latest releases. The hardware was never really capable of serious gaming anyway, but the Steam option at least gave enthusiasts something to experiment with on higher-end Chromebooks. Now that door has closed.
Cloud gaming represents the actual viable path forward, and here’s where I’ll acknowledge the workaround actually works reasonably well. Services like GeForce NOW, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Amazon Luna all run perfectly in the Chrome browser. You’re streaming games from powerful servers rather than running them locally, which means your Chromebook’s modest hardware becomes irrelevant to the gaming experience. If you have a solid internet connection running at least 15 Mbps and ideally 35 Mbps or higher, you can play proper AAA games on a device that costs a fraction of a gaming PC.
I’ve seen people play Cyberpunk 2077 on a $300 Chromebook through GeForce NOW. It genuinely works. There’s some input lag that competitive players will notice, you absolutely need a wired ethernet connection or excellent Wi-Fi to avoid frustrating stuttering, and you’re dependent on having good internet everywhere you want to game. But for casual gaming sessions, the experience is surprisingly competent. The technology has matured significantly over the past few years, and the streaming quality has improved to the point where many players don’t notice they’re not running games locally.
Android games from the Google Play Store provide another option, though it’s not what most people asking about gaming on Chromebooks actually want. There are some genuine games available including ports of older PC titles, surprisingly capable mobile games, and plenty of casual entertainment. If you’re the kind of person asking about Steam on Chromebooks, you’re probably not looking for mobile games designed for touchscreens and short play sessions. But they exist, and for some users, they’re enough.
The honest take: if you want to game casually and have reliable high-speed internet, cloud gaming makes Chromebooks surprisingly viable gaming machines despite their hardware limitations. If you want offline gaming, large local game storage, or the lowest possible latency for competitive play, you need a dedicated gaming PC or at minimum a gaming laptop. There’s no workaround for those requirements.
Professional Software Remains the Biggest Gap
AutoCAD doesn’t run on Chrome OS. Neither does SolidWorks, MATLAB, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, or the vast majority of specialized professional software that specific industries depend on. Medical imaging software, engineering tools, legal research databases with desktop clients, accounting packages that require local installation, specialty scientific applications, the list goes on extensively. If you work in a field with specific software requirements, there’s a very high probability that software doesn’t have a Chrome OS version.
This limitation reflects economic reality more than any technical deficiency in Chrome OS itself. Developing and maintaining software for additional platforms costs real money, and the return on investment for Chrome OS versions simply isn’t there for most specialized tools. These applications have small, focused user bases that don’t significantly overlap with the typical Chromebook buyer. An architectural firm isn’t deploying Chromebooks to their CAD workstations, and medical imaging software vendors aren’t seeing demand from Chrome OS users. The economics don’t support the development investment.
Some industries are genuinely moving toward web-based tools that work everywhere, including on Chromebooks. Figma has largely replaced Sketch for many user interface designers, and it runs beautifully in Chrome. OnShape offers browser-based CAD that’s genuinely capable for mechanical design work. BioRender serves the scientific illustration community through web browsers. These examples demonstrate that it’s possible to create professional-grade tools that work on any platform, but they remain exceptions rather than the norm. Most established software vendors aren’t rushing to rebuild their applications as web apps.
The Linux subsystem on modern Chromebooks opens doors for technical users. If a Linux version of the software you need exists, and for some scientific and engineering tools it genuinely does, you can probably run it on a Chromebook with Linux enabled. Command-line tools for data science, scientific computing, and software development work particularly well through this route. Some GUI applications function adequately, though the experience varies significantly depending on the specific application and how well it integrates with Chrome OS.
Remote desktop solutions offer the most practical approach for many users who need occasional access to Windows or Mac applications. Chrome Remote Desktop lets you connect to a workstation running your required software from anywhere with internet access. The experience works surprisingly well on fast connections, though you’re now paying for and maintaining two computers. Third-party solutions like Parsec offer even better performance for latency-sensitive applications. Services like Amazon WorkSpaces or Windows 365 provide full Windows desktops in the cloud if you’d rather rent than own.
The honest take: if your job requires specific professional software, verify that it runs on Chrome OS before buying a Chromebook. If it doesn’t, either plan for remote access to a computer that does run it, or just buy that computer instead of a Chromebook. Don’t purchase a Chromebook hoping the software situation will improve since these development decisions are driven by market demand that currently doesn’t exist.
Storage Limitations Require Planning Around
The storage situation on Chromebooks requires realistic expectations and some planning. Most Chromebooks ship with 64GB or 128GB of internal storage, and after the operating system consumes its share along with a handful of Android apps, you might have 40 to 80GB actually available for your files. If you have a large music library, an extensive photo collection, or regularly work with video files, this fills up faster than you’d expect. The problem compounds when you download Android apps that assume they’re running on phones with cloud backup and don’t optimize for storage efficiency.
Chromebooks are fundamentally designed around the assumption that your files live in the cloud. Google built these devices expecting users to store documents in Google Drive, photos in Google Photos, and everything else in some form of cloud storage. This philosophy works well until you need offline access to a large library of files, or your internet connection becomes unreliable, or you’re traveling somewhere with poor connectivity. The cloud-first design makes perfect sense for Google’s business model, but it can create friction for users whose computing needs don’t align perfectly with that vision.
Cloud storage genuinely solves the problem for most users most of the time. Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and iCloud all work seamlessly through Chrome browser interfaces. For documents, spreadsheets, and even photos, cloud storage provides both backup protection and access from any device. Google offers 15GB free, with 100GB available for $2 monthly or 2TB for $10 monthly. If you set up Dropbox integration or use another cloud service, you can expand your effective storage substantially without any hardware modifications.
External drives work without issues on Chromebooks. You can plug in a 2TB portable SSD via USB-C and access all your files through the built-in Files app. The experience is straightforward and reliable. The tradeoff is carrying around an extra device and cable, and remembering to bring it when you need access to those files. For some users, this is a perfectly acceptable solution. For others, the extra friction of external storage defeats the simplicity that made Chromebooks attractive in the first place.
Many Chromebooks include SD card or microSD card slots that provide a convenient middle ground. A 512GB microSD card costs around $40 these days and sits nearly flush with the device, expanding your storage substantially without adding external bulk. This works particularly well for media libraries that you want available offline without constant cloud syncing. The main caveats are that SD cards are slower than internal SSDs and can wear out under heavy write loads, but for media consumption and moderate file access, they’re an excellent solution.
Network attached storage opens possibilities for users with home servers. Chrome OS includes native SMB support, so you can access files on a NAS from your Chromebook when you’re on your home network. This keeps large media libraries accessible without consuming any local storage, though obviously this only works when you’re connected to your home network or have a VPN connection established.
The honest take: storage is manageable with workarounds, and cloud storage genuinely works for most people most of the time. But if you regularly work with large files offline, if you’re the kind of person who keeps 500GB of music on your laptop, or if you need quick access to large video files, you’ll need to plan for external storage solutions. The Chromebook’s internal storage isn’t going to grow, so your strategy needs to account for that constraint from the beginning.
Windows Software Compatibility Remains Elusive
You cannot run .exe files on a Chromebook. Your old copy of Quicken, that Windows-only tax software your accountant insists on, the specific version of Word your office requires for compatibility with their templates, the industry application from 2015 that never got updated because it still works fine on Windows, none of these will run natively on Chrome OS. This matters less each year as more software moves to web-based delivery, but there are still plenty of scenarios where you need a specific Windows program and no Chrome OS alternative exists.
The question isn’t really whether you can run Windows apps on Chromebooks. Through various technical approaches, you can sometimes make specific Windows applications work. The real question is whether you need specific Windows software badly enough to deal with the complexity and compromises of making that happen. For most casual users whose Windows dependencies have web-based alternatives, the answer is no. For people locked into specific enterprise applications or legacy software, the answer might be different.
Web versions of popular applications have expanded dramatically over the past several years. Microsoft Office runs entirely in the browser through Office 365, with functionality that matches the desktop versions for most everyday tasks. Many banking applications, tax preparation tools, and business software now offer web interfaces that work identically on any platform. Before assuming you need Windows for a specific application, check whether a web version exists that would serve your needs. You might be surprised at how many traditionally desktop applications now work in Chrome.
Android app alternatives fill some gaps effectively. Microsoft Office apps are quite capable and feel polished on Chromebooks with touchscreens. Password managers, banking apps, productivity tools, and many other categories have solid Android versions that work well on Chrome OS. The Android app ecosystem isn’t a complete replacement for Windows software, but it provides options for many common needs that weren’t available when Chromebooks first launched.
Wine and CrossOver represent the technical workaround for determined users. You can run Wine through the Linux container on Chrome OS to execute some Windows applications directly. CrossOver packages this functionality more accessibly and provides better compatibility for supported applications. Success varies wildly depending on the specific software. Some applications work perfectly through this approach. Many don’t work at all. Some work partially with frustrating bugs. If you’re considering this path, research your specific applications before committing since the Wine compatibility database documents what does and doesn’t work.
The honest take: the question isn’t whether you can somehow run Windows software on a Chromebook. The question is whether you actually need specific Windows software. Make a list of every application you use regularly. Check if each one has a web or Android version. If something critical is Windows-only with no alternatives and no viable web-based substitute, a Chromebook isn’t the right choice for your situation. Buy a Windows Mini PC or use remote access to a Windows machine instead.
Should You Actually Buy a Chromebook?
After all that honest assessment of limitations, I still recommend Chromebooks enthusiastically to the right people. They remain fast, secure, and affordable devices that require virtually no maintenance compared to Windows machines. The security features make them particularly attractive for users who might struggle with the security awareness required to keep Windows machines safe. For students, casual users, families, and anyone whose computing life fits comfortably inside a web browser, Chromebooks often represent the best choice available at any price point. The best Chromebooks under $300 can genuinely serve all the needs of users whose requirements match the platform’s strengths.
But “the right people” doesn’t mean everyone, and I’ve spent this entire article being honest about who shouldn’t buy a Chromebook. If you saw yourself clearly in any of the limitations described above, don’t purchase a Chromebook hoping the workarounds will prove good enough. They might be adequate for your needs. Or you might end up frustrated, returning the device within the return window, and telling everyone you know that Chromebooks are terrible when the reality is that you simply bought the wrong tool for your requirements.
The most important thing you can do before buying any computer is to be honest with yourself about what you actually need. Not what you might need someday. Not what would be nice to have. What you actually need to accomplish your daily computing tasks. Test the workarounds before you commit if any limitations apply to your situation. Check that your essential software runs on Chrome OS or has viable alternatives. And if a Chromebook doesn’t fit your requirements, that’s perfectly fine. There’s no shame in buying the computer that actually does what you need it to do instead of fighting with a device that wasn’t designed for your use case.
The right computer is the one that helps you get your work done without getting in the way. For many people, that’s a Chromebook. For others, it’s genuinely not. Both answers are valid, and the honest assessment of which category you fall into will save you money, frustration, and time in the long run.
