Remove auto-complete field entries in Google Chrome

162

Is there a way to stop the gmail address field (on the login page) from displaying all the gmail addresses that you have ever typed in it?

When logging in with Google Chrome or trying to set up a new account, anything you type which starts with the same letter as the one that you are trying to use currently will show up in the auto-complete field, I don't want that.

I understand that this is a convenient feature in some cases, but the thing is--I know this shouldn't've happened, but it has actually happened more than once--I sometimes mistyped my password in the Gmail address field right after the address, mistakingly assuming that the prompt had already been moved to the password field, and then hit "Enter" without looking first. The next time I tried to enter my Gmail address, it popped up the address followed by my password as one of the entries on the list of email addresses that shows up, and I couldn't get rid of the entry.

Is there a way to remove these? The autofill feature in Chrome is a time saver, and so I don't really want to turn it off. It would be helpful to be able to edit out some of the typed info, though, so it won't show up again -- is this possible to do?

NT.

Posted 2010-08-02T23:33:14.703

Reputation: 1 699

3BOOKMARKS!!! For the longest time I was unable to remove an autosuggested field, it turned out it was part of my saved bookmarks. if you cannot shift-delete it, check to see if it's in your bookmarks (does it have a star icon beside it or a magnifying glass). Hopefully that will save someone a lot of trouble that had me scratching my head. :) – eLouai – 2015-11-01T19:44:18.620

You have to now go to https://passwords.google.com and remove the old logins

– Scott – 2016-10-03T19:22:49.167

Your information is not being sent out. It stays on your machine. – Xavierjazz – 2011-01-23T11:37:22.487

Answers

187

You can remove entries from the list using the following steps:

Select the "Username" field and make sure it is blank
Press ↓ on your keyboard, a list of all of the "remembered" entries should appear.
Using ↑ & ↓ highlight an entry you would like to delete.
Press shift+delete. (Note that you may need to use fn+shift+delete on Mac or ctrl +delete on Ubuntu in some instances, like if the remembered entry is in the address / URL bar).
Repeat steps 2-4 until satisfied.

To clear login entries for a username/password combination, see another answer.

heavyd

Posted 2010-08-02T23:33:14.703

Reputation: 54 755

Shift + delete worked with me with Google Chrome on Windows 8.1 – Mina Samy – 2014-07-05T09:40:44.763

15Had to use fn+shift+delete on Mac OSx Yosemite Chrome. – CenterOrbit – 2015-06-03T19:22:25.687

fn+shift+delete and fn+shift+forward-delete do not work in Chrome 44 on Yosemite. Same for every other combination of modifier key and delete I can think of. I wish I could just option-click on the entry and get a popup menu. – jcollum – 2015-07-31T15:58:24.060

6To everyone who has reported that this answer doesn't work: if your autocomplete entry is in a login-related field, please see my answer below. – machineghost – 2015-09-16T18:54:23.317

For German keyboards, you can use: shift + entf – Luca Steeb – 2015-12-18T22:37:33.627

1shift+delete on Debian – wieczorek1990 – 2016-02-18T10:37:46.497

I had to shift delete the email address - but on a form that wasn't an email and password form. Then when I got to a form that was email and password that I didn't want that value to autocomplete - it was gone. I also deleted it from the username/password combination in Chrome settings - as detailed by others here. – niico – 2017-11-19T18:52:10.423

ctrl+shift+delete did it for me on Linux Mint. – Augustin Riedinger – 2018-05-22T09:44:19.833

1Awesome if you try several usernames (because you don't remember what you used) and afterward you always have incorrect options in the suggestions that confuse you. – Eloff – 2012-03-30T17:16:49.953

1Will this delete all autofill entries from Chrome, or will it only delete some of them? (Also, is there any way to delete all autofill text from all search boxes in Chrome)? – Anderson Green – 2013-04-12T04:13:33.417

3@AndersonGreen, you can use "Clear browser data..." button on Chrome's Settings page to clear all the entries. Just select Clear saved passwords and Clear saved Autofill form data. – alanaktion – 2013-04-26T14:47:11.337

42It appears as of v28 (possibly sooner), delete alone will not remove entries anymore, you must use shift+delete everywhere now. – Jeff Mercado – 2013-07-18T17:55:43.583

2This doesn't work for me for search entries, just URLs. Does it work for anyone else? Edit: v28 – s4y – 2013-07-20T17:59:32.620

1https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/142893?p=settings_autofill&rd=1 – Abram – 2013-09-07T16:44:23.050

On a Macintosh, type enough text to bring up the autofill entry you would like to remove and use the arrow keys to highlight the entry you would like to delete, then do fn+shift+delete and the entry will be deleted.

WilliamKF

Posted 2010-08-02T23:33:14.703

Reputation: 6 916

Cannot get this to work in Mavericks on Chrome 37 – Geuis – 2014-10-17T21:44:25.267

5At first I thought this didn't work. Then I realised it was actually in my bookmarks. If there's a star next to it, you should go to bookmark manager and use the search feature to find it. Mine was labelled "New Tab" – Jason – 2015-01-15T22:42:54.713

After trying many different key combinations, I found out: Ctrl Shift Fn Delete would work. – Bùi Thanh Hải – 2015-05-13T11:21:23.417

This seems to work but it seems like the deleted entries will stay for the page you are on until you open a new browser tab. – jcollum – 2015-07-31T15:37:55.407

As others have mentioned, the steps in the top-voted answer don't actually work in many cases. This is because Chrome stores autocomplete information for login-related fields separately, and a bug (which is two years old and shows no sign of being fixed) prevents that class of autocomplete info from being cleared with DELETE (or any other combination of keys plus DELETE).

The, unfortunately more awkward, solution is to go to a special Chrome page:

chrome://settings/passwords

That page will show you every username/password combination Chrome has stored (with the passwords blacked out). You can hover over a particular username/password pair to make an "X" appear on the right. If you click on that X it removes the auto-complete entry.

machineghost

Posted 2010-08-02T23:33:14.703

Reputation: 732

1after lots of digging I found this to be worked for me Thanks – Md. Parvez Alam – 2016-07-18T05:05:29.357

Glad I could help. – machineghost – 2016-07-18T17:05:28.473

This didn't work for me. There are no longer passwords in this chrome flag. Rather, I had to go to https://passwords.google.com and delete the ones that I no longer need.

– Scott – 2016-10-03T19:21:34.447

1@Scott Perhaps there is something special about your setup? When I go to chrome://settings/passwords with the latest (v53) Chrome I still see passwords. The dialog does say (at the bottom) "Access your passwords from any device at passwords.google.com", so it seems both places are editing the same list ... but I'm not sure why you aren't seeing them at chrome://settings/passwords like I am. – machineghost – 2016-10-03T23:55:26.780

Update as of August 3, 2015, and if you are a windows user (xp, 7, 8, etc) am still not sure about linux, ubuntu and mac osx?

In order to remove specific history of entries it can be done by pressing shift + delete when you highlighted that specific entry.

Bonus point: You can also do that in Google Chromes urlsearch bar, it means that it is not limited on facebook, gmail, etc email textbox.

(See below image)

Edit:

It is also worth noting that based on raphadco's beneficial comment, shift+delete works only for regular non-password fields, this means that if you saved an account in google chrome then you cannot delete that.

I figured it out.. Shift+Delete won't work if you also have a saved password (login+pass fields), you have to delete in chrome://passwords . Shift+delete works well for regular non-password fields though.

The solution to that problem has been solved by harschware stating that

confirmed. It's crazy but if Chrome is suggesting something in a username field and you don't want that suggested, you must delete the saved password in settings first, and then shift+delete in the field to stop the suggestion from occurring

Cary Bondoc

Posted 2010-08-02T23:33:14.703

Reputation: 304

1it works on the search bar, but not on saved fields – raphadko – 2015-08-04T21:27:36.950

@raphadko what do you mean by saved fields? – Cary Bondoc – 2015-08-04T23:41:32.093

2I figured it out.. Shift+Delete won't work if you also have a saved password (login+pass fields), you have to delete in chrome://passwords . Shift+delete works well for regular non-password fields though. – raphadko – 2015-08-06T02:31:15.250

2confirmed. It's crazy but if Chrome is suggesting something in a username field and you don't want that suggested, you must delete the saved password in settings first, and then shift+delete in the field to stop the suggestion from occurring... – harschware – 2015-08-07T00:48:15.677

On Mac you need to cause the autocomplete to be selected and then simultaneously press these three keys on the keyboard.

Sometimes pressing these keys will appear to have zero effect whatsoever (1 in 3 times and more likely when trying to remove reddit.com for some reason). However, closing the tab/window and then reopening it will prove that the autocomplete entry is no longer there.

William Entriken

Posted 2010-08-02T23:33:14.703

Reputation: 2 014

As per suggestion from this comment:

Go to: chrome://settings/autofill

Alternatively go to Settings (Advanced), then Autofill settings (under Passwords and forms).
Select Manage Autofill settings.
In the dialog, select the entry which you'd like to remove.

See: How to clear unwanted autofill entries in Google Chrome.