Chrome Story

How to Turn off Chrome’s ‘Most Visited Sites’ Thumbnails

Google Chrome lists your most frequently visited websites as thumbnails on the new tab page. You can use these thumbnails to quickly visit these websites. However, if you do not want these thumbnails, you can disable or hide them.

There are two different ways to hide the most visited websites’ thumbnails. The first option is to replace them with a set of shortcuts of your choice. The second option is to hide these shortcuts completely.

Replace Websites with Custom Links

To replace the most visited thumbnails with your custom shortcuts:

  1. Open a new tab and click Customize Chrome.Customize Chrome NTP
  2. Click Shortcuts.Chrome NTP Shortcuts
  3. Select My shortcuts.My Shortcuts - Chrome New Tab Page
  4. Click Done.Finish Customizing - Done
  5. You can now customize shortcuts on your new tab page. Refer to our guide on how to customize these links.

Turn off Most Visited Tabs – Empty New Tab Page

What if you do not want any links, custom or most visited, on the new tab page? Follow these steps.

  1. Open a new tab and click Customize Chrome.Customize Chrome NTP
  2. Click Shortcuts.Chrome NTP Shortcuts
  3. Switch on the Hide shortcuts toggle.Hide Shortcuts Toggle - NTP
  4. Click Done.Finish Customizing - Done
  5. You should now have an empty Google Chrome new tab page.

I hope you found this guide useful. As your questions in the comments form below.

In

Dinsan
Digital Minimalist & Content Developer. Drinks Tea and writes Stuff (mostly about Chromebooks). My views are mostly copied from others.

15 responses to “How to Turn off Chrome’s ‘Most Visited Sites’ Thumbnails”

  1. yawn Avatar
    yawn

    This only works when opening a new window. The list of most visited websites still comes up when opening a new tab.

    Reply
    1. chrome story Avatar
      chrome story

      thanks for the info .. I will check that once again 🙂

      Reply
  2. Chaz4 Avatar
    Chaz4

    There appears to be no way to change the content of the New Tab Page! You can have it appear as the home page, but not change its content.

    This should be ridiculously easy for Google to fix.

    Reply
    1. chrome story Avatar
      chrome story

      there is a new workaround for this … I will post it now 🙂

      Reply
      1. tdilla Avatar
        tdilla

        there is a new workaround for this … I will post it now

        And? This really should be easy to fix. My girlfriend already nailed me for Pr0n, thanks.

      2. chrome story Avatar
        chrome story

        I’ve already posted that !

      3. GOOZOG Avatar
        GOOZOG

        To ‘chrome story’.
        You say “I’ve already posted that!” but where did you post it so we the people can use it????

  3. motley blogger Avatar
    motley blogger

    “Howz that?” Thatz stupid. It does not work and never will work to set your home page as a solution for getting rid of speed dial.

    Reply
    1. chrome story Avatar
      chrome story

      they are implementing more features correcting this, I have posted a few

      Reply
  4. loose Avatar
    loose

    It is totally unsuited for the many shared computers. Ordinary Google also allows individual items of history to be deleted- not this ridiculous all or nothing.

    Reply
  5. peace Avatar
    peace

    heres an easy fix, just fill up the page with your other websites that you visit, that you don’t mind other people seeing, and then make them permanent by clicking the little button at the left top side of the square, just hover you pointer over it for a while and theres a little bar that shows up, also on the right side theres a X just click that to get rid of the ones you don’t want.

    the button on the left makes them permanent so when all eight fill up there wont be new ones.

    this is actually a nice feature, but it be better if you could easily choose the ones that you want to put.

    Reply
  6. tmv Avatar
    tmv

    there are three button icons in the top right corner when you open a new tab (in the window, below the address bar). to make is that chrome doesn’t automatically display your recent or most visited websites, click on button farthest right. you will see three options (most visited, recently closed, and restore…). click on each of them so there is no check mark next any of them. this won’t stop people from being able to check your sites (by clicking on the other two button icons), but it will stop chrome from automatically displaying them when a new tab is opened.

    Hope this helps

    Reply
  7. man x Avatar
    man x

    just delete all your history by pressing the spanner top right,select history then edit and all history will be deleted.gone.no more most visited or any thing

    Reply
  8. Hammer Avatar
    Hammer

    Doesn’t work dipshit

    Reply
    1. Matt Mattelig Avatar
      Matt Mattelig

      you don’t need to be vulgar. here the guy is trying to help and you call him names. SHAME on you!!. Tell your mom she needs to teach you some manners.

      Reply

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