Chrome tips
Use ‘Paste and search’ or ‘Paste and go
Google Chrome offers an easy way to use copied text and URLs. Copy some text and right-click on the address bar (also known as Omnibox). You will see “Paste and search”. This option allows you to start a search using the copied text using your default search engine. This will make searching faster for you. Similarly, if you copy a web address and right-click on the address bar, you will see “Paste and go”. This will paste the copied URL into the address bar and open the website.
CTRL + SHIFT + DEL to delete browsing history
To quickly access the delete browsing history page, use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + DEL. On a Mac, use CMD + SHIFT + DEL. If you are a Chromebook user, use the CTRL + SHIFT + BACK. For more information about deleting browsing data, refer to our guide here.
Use Chrome’s Task Manager
Chrome has a built-in task manager. It lists all the open tabs and their resource usage. To open this, use the keyboard shortcut:
- SHIFT + ESC on Windows
- CMD + ESC on macOS
- SEARCH + ESC on Chromebooks
Add the ‘Home’ button to the address bar
To quickly access your Home tab from anywhere, you can add the home icon to the address bar. To do that, open Settings > Appearance and enable Show home button.
View tabs from other devices
If you have signed into Chrome using your Google account (Chromesync), you can access tabs from all your devices. For example, if you were reading an article on your laptop and want to continue on the mobile, that’s possible. To do this, open the History page (chrome://history or CTRL+ H) and look at Tabs from other devices. If you are on mobile, you can do this by going to Settings (three dots menu) and selecting Recent tabs. This will list will include your tabs from other devices:
Useful keyboard shortcuts
In this section, we will look at the most useful keyboard shortcuts for Google Chrome. Here is the official (and complete) list of Chrome keyboard shortcuts.
Middle-click a tab to close it
To quickly close an open tab, use your mouse’s middle-click. You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + W (CMD + W on a Mac)
Drag a tab away to make it a separate window
You can drag any tab from the current window and make it a separate window. In the same way, you can drag a window back to a set of tabs. You can do this with multiple tabs as well. Hold down CTRL (CMD on macOS) and select multiple tabs. You can now move them around or move them away from the current window to create a new window.
SHIFT + Click opens links in a new window
If you click any ink while holding down the SHIFT key, the link will open in a new window.
Change the Shelf position
By default, Chromebook puts the Shelf (a.k.a dock or toolbar) at the bottom edge of the screen. However, it also gives you an option to change the position of that Shelf to left or right just like Linux by right-clicking (tap with two fingers on the trackpad) and setting the shelf position. Or even hide the shelf by selecting the auto-hide option.
