Chrome: remove URL from autocomplete which doesn't show up in history?

160

I accidentally visited gist.gihub.com (note the missing t), and now that URL auto completes each time I start typing gist.…. How can I remove this URL?

I've tried removing it from my history, but that doesn't help:

enter image description here

(note the empty search results)

David Wolever

Posted 2011-08-26T21:05:04.490

Reputation: 1 999

Did you remove all the history or just the last entry ? – Ioan Paul Pirau – 2011-08-26T21:11:47.420

Sry, don't have Chrome, but have you tried pressing [del] while targeting/hovering that entry? – ragnq – 2011-08-26T21:12:03.597

This question has been asked before, but heres the answer.

– Keltari – 2011-08-26T21:13:55.313

Yup, Keltari’s right; removing URLs is the same as removing titles (like in the other question). However, see my addendum to make it easier if you visited a while ago. – Synetech – 2011-08-26T21:19:44.710

I did not clear my history, I only removed the offending URLs. As you can see from the screenshot, searching the history for gihub.com doesn't return anything, but it still appears in the omnibar suggestions. – David Wolever – 2011-08-26T22:12:38.963

The History page is limited and does not always return correct/expected results. Use the extensions I indicated to do a proper search of the history. – Synetech – 2011-08-26T22:16:25.833

@Keltari: the question you linked to is not relevant: the solution there is to remove the offending site from my history, but I've already done that. – David Wolever – 2011-08-26T22:19:34.927

Well, this seems to be an issue.

– Chad Feller – 2011-08-26T22:30:16.810

3i have the same problem when i accidentally typed reddit.com/r/gonewild when i meant reddit.com/r/programming. (note the extra g,n,e,w,l,d) – Ian Boyd – 2012-03-25T13:44:04.617

Answers

261

Highlight the item (using your keyboard arrows) and use shift+delete

(Note that on the Mac you seem to need to also press fn, so fn+shift+delete)

NOTES

this won't work on URLs that have been bookmarked. For these you must first delete the bookmark, then delete it from the Omnibar history (you can tell it's a bookmark if there's a star next to it as you start typing)
you must select the entries in the Omnibar history using the arrow keys to select

Peter Smit

Posted 2011-08-26T21:05:04.490

Reputation: 7 906

Doesn't work in Chrome 36.0.1985.143 for Windows. – Brent Faust – 2014-09-17T18:19:48.610

Didn't work for my in chrome 37.0.2062.124 – WSK – 2014-10-13T16:20:26.163

6this answer is no longer valid, 38.0.2125.122. I tried combinations of command, shift, fn, and delete on my mac book pro and the entry doesn't go away. We recently changed domain name and I have a history full of now broken urls, so very annoying. – Jilles van Gurp – 2014-11-17T17:48:06.253

1I just tested on Ubuntu, 38.0.2125.122 (64-bit) and it still works. Maybe on windows or mac it is different. – Peter Smit – 2014-11-18T05:08:15.103

2worked for me on chrome 39, OSX 10.10, macbook pro. Also verified that it synced to my iPhone Chrome. I used to type "wea" and it would complete to "weather.com" which I didn't want. So, typed "wea", saw it complete, pressed shift+fn+del, then cleared the omnibar bar and typed "wea" again, no more "weather.com". Tried it on iOS a few minutes later. At first it did complete to "weather.com" but a few moments later it stopped. YEA! – gman – 2014-12-18T22:38:29.043

Works on 39.0.2171.95 m Windows 8.1 x64. – Micah Zoltu – 2014-12-23T22:27:25.087

1@techaddict On my machine (arch) it still works in 40.0.2214.94 (64-bit). There seem to be conflicting reports, but this method is absolutely not obsolete yet. – Peter Smit – 2015-02-09T06:50:52.870

4This will NOT WORK if the URL is in your bookmarks. Instead, delete from your bookmarks. – William Entriken – 2015-02-22T19:06:30.490

I've deleted twitter using this, and from my bookmarks but it still pops up and I can't get it away. – API-Beast – 2015-03-03T11:34:47.237

Been needing to address this for ages :) Worked for me. Regarding some of the comments backspace !== delete/del. – ficuscr – 2015-10-08T16:12:43.973

This worked for me just now, so the answer is still valid, at least for the latest chrome build as of this date – Ravendarksky – 2016-03-29T16:30:56.217

On my macbook I have to hit ⌘+delete. – ShadSterling – 2016-08-12T22:42:42.907

worked fine deleting gmail.com, and giving priority back to google.com when typing "g". Thanks a lot. – skyrail – 2016-09-18T18:50:36.547

@LexPodgorny Works for me on mac – Duncan X Simpson – 2016-10-29T23:11:58.440

Wonderful, thank you! Works all the way up to chrome v63.0.3239.108 :) – M. I. Wright – 2017-12-23T17:20:36.957

This solution looks like not working anymore since Chrome 70 (Mac). – cadavre – 2018-11-05T08:44:13.710

THANK YOU for mentioning the bookmark bit. Wasted 20 mins trying to figure out why I cannot remove a single URL. – e_x_p – 2019-03-10T19:43:56.570

2This works. Although it should be mentioned that rather "for example your keyboard", you must use your keyboard. You cannot leave an item highlighted with your mouse, and leaving the mouse-button down will prevent Shift+Delete from deleting. – Ian Boyd – 2012-03-25T13:48:13.363

3Didn't work for me on 10.7.4, chrome 19.0.1084.52 – Heath Borders – 2012-06-06T13:25:08.420

+1 works for me on Lion 10.7.4 with Chrome 20.0.1132.47 – opyate – 2012-06-29T14:25:47.067

1For, me my "delete" key didn't work, but my "Del" key did. – Mark Stosberg – 2012-11-06T20:21:20.243

3Doesn't work for me. Chrome 27.0.1453.110. Macbook Pro, Snow Leopard. – Steve Bennett – 2013-06-12T00:19:11.803

My external keyboard didn't work, but the laptop keyboard worked perfectly. Weird. Macbook pro 10.8.5 – Vlad Spreys – 2013-09-28T03:03:21.633

Actually, fn + shift + backspace did the job on a Macbook Pro, Mountain Lion. – yagooar – 2013-10-17T18:19:15.143

MBP osx10.9 and Chrome 31.0.1650.63 the addition of the fn key did the trick. +1 – Jacksonkr – 2014-01-03T16:09:30.657

If you have a full keyboard, you need to press the delete that is over with home and end and page up and page down. If you have a smaller keyboard that doesn't have those (such as a laptop) then you need to press fn+shift+delete. And if you do the wrong thing and modify the url by deleting a letter from the address bar, then it won't work and you have to start over. – jeffamaphone – 2014-04-17T15:39:57.703

Low level answer, if you want to know the whole list:

This is stored in an sqlite3 database in Google Chrome's userprofile folder, on Linux it's located in

~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Top Sites

You can use SQLite3 to have a look at it:

me@local~/.config/google-chrome/Default$ cp Top\ Sites ts.sqlite
me@local~/.config/google-chrome/Default$ sqlite3 ts.sqlite ...
sqlite> .schema
...
CREATE TABLE thumbnails (url LONGVARCHAR PRIMARY KEY,url_rank INTEGER ,...
sqlite> select url_rank,url from thumbnails order by url_rank;
0|https://android.stackexchange.com/
...
21|http://archive.org/
23|https://android.googlesource.com/
24|https://android.meta.stackexchange.com/

To answer your question:
You can delete or edit an entry using regular SQL commands, but be sure that Chrome is not running, i.e. the file is not opened (by Chrome). Also note that I did all actions on a copy because of that (was only looking).

ce4

Posted 2011-08-26T21:05:04.490

Reputation: 923

I have a long list I want to edit (domain name changed). If I update the entries here, then open chrome, they still appear as suggestions, and are added as new entries to this table. They are getting copied to this table from some other place. – Lee – 2016-01-14T17:22:51.243

this would be a really great answer if you could fill in the missing parts currently hidden by "...". What is the delete statement? and ... why don't show tables or .tables work? – Abe – 2013-01-25T19:50:01.490

The "..." just just hide the standard login prompt from sqlite3, my Top Sites ranked 1-20 which I didn't want to disclose and parts of the schema that are not necessary for the answer. SQLite uses standard SQL statements, so just write the statement yourself if you're familiar with it. I didn't include that delete statement on purpose. Type .help to get help on SQLite usage or see the man page here: http://linux.die.net/man/1/sqlite3

– ce4 – 2013-01-25T20:14:36.180

Sorry, I had two errors; first was misspelling the file extension .sqlite (so .schema returned nothing; so I thought that your create statement was a command to be issued ...) and then assuming that familiar mysql commands like show tables; must be standard. But now that I am over those hurdles I should be okay. – Abe – 2013-01-25T23:06:10.747

so, after doing sqlite3 Top\ Sites; delete from thumbnnails where url = "http://www.example.com";, I still see the unwanted site. Also, for the record, the README says "Google Chrome settings and storage represent user-selected preferences and information and MUST not be extracted, overwritten or modified except through Google Chrome defined APIs.". In any case, thanks for getting me a chance to check out sqlite. – Abe – 2013-01-25T23:18:52.517

1:-) Yeah, "show tables" is not SQL really, it's a little different in sqlite, I also have to use .help each time I use it to get it right... – ce4 – 2013-01-25T23:19:11.703

Chrome's not running while you do that, right? – ce4 – 2013-01-25T23:20:22.420

okay. it looks like I deleted the website, but it still comes up as an autocomplete in search. But I am super happy to have learned a new trick. 50 bonus points are on their way... – Abe – 2013-01-25T23:39:04.917

Thanks! The history may also be used, just check that it's clean of the site you don't want to see any more ( via chrome://history/ ) – ce4 – 2013-01-26T04:33:16.843

I don't see a Top Sites folder in my ~/.config/google-chrome/Default/ using Chrome 32.0.1700.107 on Linux. Has that changed in newer versions? I'd like to try this -- it sounds cool. – Drew Noakes – 2014-02-05T15:51:30.410

ce4, Thank you! The easier way of editing the file may be using the sqlitebrowser or any other GUI on top of sqlite. – osgx – 2014-05-09T18:16:59.620

I have found several places that mention Fn+Shift+Del for a mac and Shift+Delete for windows.
I do use windows, and from my experience I often needed to use Fn+Shift+Delete.

jave

Posted 2011-08-26T21:05:04.490

Reputation: 79

1Wrong answer. Not valid. This method is obsolete. – superuser – 2015-02-09T06:09:41.027

Thank you, works perfect on Mac! Other suggested Shift+Del, but that didn't work for me. NOTE!! You MUST use the arrows to scroll down to the entry you want to delete and use Fn+Shift+Del (on Mac) – Ali Alwash – 2016-06-09T08:06:17.523

Does not work on mac, El Capitan – Division by Zero – 2016-10-20T10:34:10.097

-1

I found a solution.

Highlight the item in the address bar drop-down box by pressing the left mouse button over it, but don't release the mouse button, continue holding it. Then press shift with your other hand, hold it, then take the hand with your mouse up and while keeping the button pressed , press the delete button with your little finger on the right hand.

Groggo

Posted 2011-08-26T21:05:04.490

Reputation: 7

2Tried, and failed. It deletes the autocompleted portion of the url, but leaves it in the auto-complete history. – Ian Boyd – 2012-03-25T13:45:21.807

Doesn't work for me. – Jake Wilson – 2013-06-19T21:06:28.313