Google Chrome has more than 60% of the browser market share due to its easy to use features and high security level. There are as many as hidden features and tips to enhance the user experience of Chrome. These tips and tricks can help you to improve the productivity when using the browser frequently.
Google Chrome Tips and Tricks
Here are some useful tips for getting more out of Chrome browser. Let us explain each tip in detail.
1. Add Home Button
- By default Chrome does not show home button in the browser.
- Enter the URL “chrome://settings/” in address bar and go to “Appearance” section. Check out our article to learn more about accessing Chrome URL commands.
- Turn on the “Show home button” option and instantly the home button will be displayed in the browser next to the address bar.
- By default, the home button will link to a new tab page in Chrome. However, you can set any URL as your home page by selecting second radio button and enter the URL in the text box.
Note: For keyboard shortcut, use Alt + Home in Windows PC to quickly access home page in Chrome.
2. Using Browser Tabs
You can manage tabs effectively using different options to improve your productivity.
- Simply drag and drop a tab outside a browser window to open it in a new window.
- If your mouse has middle button, use the center click on the tab to close it.
- Use Shift key to select more than one tab to move left or right together. You can also click Ctrl + W to close all the tabs in once.
- Ctrl + T open a new tab in the same window. When many tabs are opened in a window use Ctrl +1 to move to the first tab and Ctrl + 9 to move to the last tab. Ctrl + 2 to Ctrl + 8 will move to the corresponding tabs in the browser.
- Right click on a tab to view more options like pinning or duplicating a tab.
- Pinning a tab will move it to the left corner and Chrome will only display the favicon of the website without any title. This will be useful especially when you work with lots of open tabs in a single browser window.
- You can close all other tabs or all tabs right to the tab you are viewing. The latest Chrome version also offers option for adding the tab to reading list or creating a tab group.
3. Opening Links in Chrome
- If your mouse has a middle button, use the center click on any link to open the page in a new tab. This will work for all the links including drop-down menus.
- Use Ctrl + Left click to open a link in a new tab and Shift + Left click to open a link in a new window.
- Drag and drop any URL link on a page to the address bar to open it in the same page. You can also drag and drop a menu link to the address bar.
- Alt + Left click will download the link in default download folder.
4. Creating Shortcuts for a Web Page
Chrome allows you to easily create a shortcut for a web page.
- Select the URL in the address bar and drop into your desktop.
- Go to “Settings > More Tools > Create Shortcut…” and choose where you want to create a shortcut.
- By default, these shortcuts will be saved as Chrome apps and you can find them under “chrome://apps/” section.
5. Zooming In, Zoom Out and View Shortcuts
Use the following keyboard shortcuts to adjust the readability when viewing websites in Chrome.
- Ctrl + + to zoom out the current browser window.
- Ctrl + – to zoom in the current browser window.
- Press space bar to move page down when viewing a web page.
- Ctrl + 0 to set the page to default zoom level.
- Press Shift + Space bar to move page up.
- F11 to view the page in full screen mode.
6. Using Bookmarks
Here are some of the quick shortcuts for managing bookmarks in Chrome.
- Click Ctrl + D to Bookmark the current page.
- Use Ctrl + Shift + B to show or hide Bookmark bar in a page.
- Use Ctrl + Shift + D to save all the open tabs in a new Bookmark folder.
7. Controlling Sound Play
You can control whether a webpage is allowed to play video and audio sound automatically or mute to avoid unexpected distraction.
- Go to the URL “chrome://settings/content” in your Chrome browser.
- Scroll down and click “Additional content settings” option and then select “Sound”.
- Here you can change the default behavior of whether sites can play sound or not allowed.
8. Browsing History and Restoring Closed Tabs
Chrome backups all your browsing history which can be seen by using “Ctrl + H” shortcuts in Windows and “Command + Y” in Mac. If you accidentally closed a tab and wanted to see it again use “Ctrl + Shift + T” in Windows and “Command+ Shift + T” in Mac to open it in a new tab page. Holding Ctrl + Shift (or Command + Shift in Mac) and then pressing T every time will open the last 10 closed tabs from your browsing history in a reverse order (latest opened tab will open first).
Use Ctrl/Command + Shift + Del to delete all your browsing history.
9. Search Engine Settings
Chrome does not offer separate search box as normally offered by Firefox and Internet Explorer. Type keywords in the address bar and press enter to open the search results using your default search engine in the same tab. After typing the keywords, use Alt + Enter to open the search results in a new tab. Chrome address bar is referred as Omnibox which you can use to open URLs as well as for searching keywords directly. Learn more about using Omnibox search in Chrome.
You can highlight any text in a webpage, drag and drop it in the address bar to get a search results for that keywords.
10. Download Settings
By default, Chrome will save all downloaded files in a download folder of “My Documents” section in Windows and “Downloads” folder in Mac. You can change the default download folder in Chrome settings or choose an option to ask where to save the file every time before download starts.
11. View Page Source and CSS
Right click on any webpage and select “View Page Source” option to see the source code of that webpage. You can also use the “Inspect” option for checking each element in a page and viewing source CSS code with Chrome Developer Tools. Learn more about viewing source HTML, CSS and JavaScript here.
12. Task Manager in Chrome Windows
Right click on the Chrome title bar or on the minimized window on the task bar and choose task manager. This will show the CPU and memory usage of each tab opened in the browser. You can analyze which tab is consuming more memory and close it whenever the browser responds slowly.
13. Chrome Notifications
Some browser apps and extensions may show you notifications in the system tray when you logged in through your Google account. You can enable or disable Chrome notifications any time. Enter the URL “chrome://settings/content” in your browser and navigate to “Notifications” section. Select an appropriate option to allow or disallow Chrome notifications.
Conclusion
We hope the above explained Google Chrome tips can help you to improve your productivity. We do have large collection of Chrome and other browser related articles. Check out all of them and use the browser wisely.
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