How can I disable Chrome's address bar search autocomplete?

Chrome's autocomplete for searches is often very annoying and intrusive because it is opt-out. It autocompletes by default and you have to press Backspace to dismiss it. Google search suggestions are welcome but sometimes I just want to type what I want.

There's an option for "Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar" but this disables suggestions also. Is there any way to disable autocomplete without losing suggestions?

Brian Ortiz

Posted 2013-03-07T20:22:54.663

Reputation: 624

1I'm presuming the question is that in the title, it is unclear from reading your question. You seem to be saying, "I want to eliminate suggestions, but at the same time I don't." – Dan – 2013-03-07T20:58:18.143

I edited it to hopefully be more clear. – Brian Ortiz – 2013-03-07T21:12:07.563

1I don't think Google differentiates between autocomplete and suggestions with search - it's all or nothing. Are you possibly referring to autofill (completing forms)? – Dan – 2013-03-07T21:18:02.563

Not forms, just search when you use the address bar/omnibox. – Brian Ortiz – 2013-03-07T21:26:15.843

Then my answer below is the best response. Beyond that there is nothing more you can do. It is either all or nothing. You cannot modify the behavior of how you dismiss suggestions. Suggestions and autocomplete are the same service. – Dan – 2013-03-07T21:27:54.750

1I even checked about:flags and there was nothing that lets you control one without affecting enabling/disabling the other – Dan – 2013-03-07T21:36:30.383

7Major bummer.... Suggestions are extremely useful but autocomplete is extremely annoying. – jahroy – 2013-07-05T18:41:43.867

Answers

It can never be fully disabled, unfortunately. You can clear your browser history (including all new history being cleared on session exit every time) and follow the below steps to get close to the desired results.

In older versions of chrome:

Go to the Chrome menu on the browser toolbar
Click Settings
Click Show advanced settings (on the bottom)
In the Privacy section, deselect the "Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar" checkbox

In newer versions:

From privacy section, click "Sync and Google services"
Disable "Autocomplete searches and URLs"

Keep in mind that the address bar shows matches from your browsing history, in addition to predictions. If you don't want to see matches from your browsing history, you must clear that as well.

Beyond that there is nothing more you can do. It is either all or nothing. You cannot modify the behavior of how you dismiss suggestions. Suggestions and autocomplete are the same service.

Dan

Posted 2013-03-07T20:22:54.663

Reputation: 803

See https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95656. I was interested in removing matches from my browsing history as well. To do that, you need to clear your browsing history. I'm also interested in preventing browsing history from being kept so that I don't have to keep doing this. It seems the only way to do that is to use Incognito ("If you don’t want Chrome to save your browsing history at all, you can switch to Incognito mode." - https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95589)

– Adam Zerner – 2017-03-01T07:02:10.987

1From the original post, he wanted to keep suggestions, but remove the auto-added highlighted part. – NessDan – 2017-10-19T15:43:56.337

@NessDan yep - hence my last paragraph explaining google won't let us have our cake and eat it, too. It's all or nothing – Dan – 2017-10-19T16:28:44.980

this answer is wrong http://superuser.com/a/543412

– Steven Penny – 2017-12-16T19:50:31.897

1Wrong: this disables google's autocompletion based on other user's searches, but keeps showing my own searches in autocompletion. I want precisely the opposite: I don't want it to keep track of my search queries (which is intrusive in my opinion, I'm not searching for porn or anything in public mode, but I still don't want my colleagues to see the history of my search queries and topics that interest me), but want to keep autocompletion based on popular queries. – Boris Burkov – 2019-01-30T11:52:37.590

@BorisBurkov you’d need to clear your browsing history and stop storing browser history (forget on exit) – Dan – 2019-01-30T13:52:19.327

@Dan Thanks for this suggesting, it is a useful option, but I don't want to lose my browser history as I often look something up in it. I just don't want the browser to display my previous queries while doing the auotcompletion. – Boris Burkov – 2019-01-30T14:06:54.813

@StevenPenny addressed – Dan – 2019-01-30T16:52:14.853

@BorisBurkov unfortunately it's just not possible (by design).

– Dan – 2019-01-30T16:53:13.073

For me there are two different things to do. The first one has been already marked as the correct answer. In brief:

Go to Chrome preferences - Advanced options - Disable: Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar

However I still see, in addition to sites saved as bookmarks, URLs that I frequently visit. So the second thing to do to remove those entries is to:

When the unwanted URL appear, type Shift+Del (Windows) or Shift+Function+Delete (Mac) (Full answer here). I guess you can also clear all history cache, if you prefer!

chelder

Posted 2013-03-07T20:22:54.663

Reputation: 189