Go to grammarly.com and sign up free. Install the browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.
That's the setup. The Grammarly icon now appears in every text field on the web - Gmail, Google Docs, LinkedIn, social media, everywhere.
Start writing anywhere. You'll see colored underlines: red for grammar, yellow for clarity, blue for style. Click any underline to see the suggestion and accept or ignore it.
Prompt Templates
Set your goals first: Click Set Goals and choose your audience (general or expert), formality (formal or casual), and intent (inform or persuade). Grammarly adjusts every suggestion to match.
Full sentence rewrite: Highlight any sentence ? click the AI rewrite icon ? Grammarly suggests a complete rewrite in your chosen tone. Great for emails you've stared at too long.
Draft an email from scratch: In the Grammarly editor, type: "Write a follow-up email to a client who hasn't responded in 2 weeks. Professional but warm."
Quick social post: "Write a LinkedIn post about [topic] that sounds authentic, not corporate. Under 150 words."
Check for plagiarism: Paste content into the Grammarly editor ? click Plagiarism ? it scans against billions of web pages and academic papers.
Pro Tips
Set up a custom style guide. Tell Grammarly your specific rules ("always use Oxford comma," "never use the word 'utilize'"). Every suggestion follows your preferences from that point on.
Check the tone detector before hitting send. Before you send that important email, look at the tone indicator - it tells you if your message reads as "confident," "friendly," "formal," or "harsh." Catches accidentally blunt emails before they land.
Use Snippets for text you type constantly. Create shortcuts like "/meeting" that expand into your standard scheduling message. Found in the Grammarly dashboard under Snippets.
What It's NOT Good For
Creative or stylistic writing. Grammarly assumes standard business English. If you write with intentional voice, sentence fragments, or stylistic choices, it flags everything. You'll spend more time dismissing suggestions than accepting them.
Replacing a dedicated AI writer. Grammarly's AI prompts generate usable first drafts, but the output isn't as polished as ChatGPT or Claude for longer content. It's best at improving what you've already written.