How to disable Chrome's URL bar autosuggestions

Written by Stefan Judis
Published at
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This post is part of my Today I learned series in which I share all my web development learnings.

Firefox is my primary browser, but I switch to Chrome at work because we're relying heavily on Google Slides and Docs. That's why I spend a lot of time looking for files, and I leverage Chrome's URL bar to find them with their filename.

Chrome URL bar completion with a lot of nonsense.

Chrome's URL bar suggestions include previously opened URLs and files (great 👍), but also search query suggestions and links to "related and useful" sites (not so great 👎). These smart suggestions are just in my way, and I tried to figure out how to disable them after an unsuccessful Google search.

Thanks to Leif, I now know that the "turn off autosuggestions" setting is buried in the sync section (chrome://settings/syncSetup).

Disable autosuggestion setting in Chrome.

And now look at that. 👇 Much better! 🎉

Chrome URL bar without auto suggestions.

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About Stefan Judis

Frontend nerd with over ten years of experience, freelance dev, "Today I Learned" blogger, conference speaker, and Open Source maintainer.

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