Chrome hides every newly installed extension behind the puzzle piece menu by default, and Docognito is no exception. Click the puzzle icon at the right of the address bar, find Docognito in the list, and click the pin next to its name. The disguise itself runs whether the icon is pinned or not.
Why the icon is not sitting in the toolbar
This is standard Chrome behaviour, not something specific to this extension. Every extension you add starts out tucked inside the overflow menu, the small puzzle piece icon at the right of the address bar, rather than pinned directly to the visible toolbar row. Chrome does this so the toolbar does not fill up with a growing row of icons as you install more extensions over time.
Docognito follows that same default. Right after installing it, the icon is not missing or broken, it is simply sitting one click deeper than the toolbar itself, inside a menu Chrome maintains for exactly this purpose.
This applies equally to every browser built on Chromium, not just Chrome itself. Edge and Brave both use the same puzzle piece pattern, with newly installed extensions starting in an overflow menu rather than pinned to the visible row, so the same steps below apply regardless of which of those browsers you happen to be using.
Finding it and pinning it
Click the puzzle piece icon
It sits at the right side of the address bar, next to any icons that are already pinned. Clicking it opens a dropdown listing every installed extension.
Locate Docognito in the list
It appears alphabetically alongside anything else you have installed, with its name and icon shown next to a pin outline.
Click the pin icon next to its name
The pin fills in and the icon moves out of the dropdown and into the visible toolbar row, staying there for every future tab.
Once pinned, the icon stays in that spot across browser restarts, until you choose to unpin it again through the same menu.
Why some people leave it unpinned on purpose
Pinning is not required for the disguise to function, and some people deliberately leave it tucked away rather than pinning it. An icon sitting in the toolbar is one more thing a passing glance might notice and wonder about, and the overflow menu is a reasonable place to leave anything you would rather not have visible by default.
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| Want quick access to the popup and its two toggles | Pin it, so one click reaches the settings |
| Prefer nothing extra sitting in the visible toolbar | Leave it unpinned, it still works the same |
| Toolbar already has several icons pinned | Consider unpinning a few others too, a row with fewer icons draws less attention either way |
The middle row is worth repeating on its own, because it answers the actual question behind this search. Pinned or not, the extension keeps working.
The toolbar icon and the disguise are two separate things Chrome and the extension each control
Chrome decides where the icon sits. Docognito decides what happens on claude.ai, chatgpt.com and chat.openai.com, and no other website, redrawing the visible page, redrawn as a document editor along with the browser tab title and the tab icon. Moving the icon changes nothing about the second part.
What the icon is actually for
The icon opens a small popup with two controls. One switches the disguise on and off directly, as an alternative to Shift and Escape, which both hides the disguise and brings it back. The other switches between a light and a dark version of the document page. Neither setting requires the icon to be pinned, since clicking it through the overflow menu opens the exact same popup.
Most people who pin it do so purely for speed, reaching the toggle in one click rather than two. It has no bearing on whether claude.ai or chatgpt.com render disguised, which happens automatically on page load regardless of where the icon sits.
For the moment you actually need it fastest, mid conversation with someone approaching your desk, the icon is rarely the quickest route anyway. Shift and Escape, which both hides the disguise and brings it back reaches the same toggle without moving your hand to the mouse or hunting for a small icon in a crowded toolbar row, which is why the popup exists as a second way in rather than the primary one.
If the icon is missing from the overflow menu too
If Docognito does not appear even inside the puzzle piece dropdown, that points to a different problem than pinning, most likely the install did not finish, or the extension was disabled after installing. Check chrome://extensions directly. If it is listed there and switched on but still does not appear anywhere in the toolbar area, that is worth treating as a separate fault covered in fixing Docognito when it stops working, rather than a pinning question.
Pinning is convenience, not a requirement
An unpinned icon is expected behaviour, not a fault. Pin it through the puzzle piece menu if you want one click access to the popup, or leave it where Chrome put it, since the disguise itself runs from the page loading, not from the icon being visible.
Use Docognito and decide the pin question purely on convenience, it has no effect on whether claude.ai or chatgpt.com actually render disguised.