How to Stop Chrome from Showing Recent Searches in the Address Bar

When you type in Chrome’s address bar, it often shows your past searches or visited sites as suggestions. This can be helpful—but also annoying or even embarrassing on shared devices. If you’d rather keep things private, you can turn off these suggestions completely.

This guide explains how to stop Chrome from showing recent searches under the search or address bar, using different methods depending on what you want to control.

Method 1: Delete Individual Search Suggestions

If you just want to remove one or two specific past searches, you can delete them quickly.

1. Open Chrome.
2. Click in the address bar and start typing your search.
3. When the unwanted suggestion appears, use the arrow keys to highlight it.
4. Press Shift + Delete on Windows or Fn + Shift + Delete on Mac.

This removes that single suggestion from your history.

Method 2: Clear Browsing History

To stop old searches from showing up at all, you can clear your entire browsing history.

1. Open Chrome.
2. Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner.
3. Select History > History (or press Ctrl+H / Cmd+Y).
4. Click Clear browsing data on the left.
5. In the pop-up, choose a time range—like All time.
6. Check Browsing history, Cookies, and Cached images.
7. Click Clear data.

This wipes out your search history and other saved site data.

Tip: This will also sign you out of websites and may slow down loading for frequently visited sites until Chrome reloads them.

Method 3: Turn Off Chrome Sync

If Chrome Sync is on, your searches may be saved to your Google account and show up again on any device.

To disable this:

1. Open Chrome.
2. Click the profile icon in the top-right.
3. Select Sync is on (or Turn off sync).
4. Click Turn off to stop syncing data like browsing history.

This prevents search history from syncing across devices—but it doesn’t stop local suggestions. For that, see the next method.

Note: This does not delete your search history—it only stops Chrome from showing it while typing.

Summary

Chrome tries to be helpful by remembering what you searched for, but sometimes you just want a clean slate. Whether you’re trying to remove one search or stop all suggestions, the steps above let you take control of what Chrome shows as you type.

Questions? Let me know in the comments section below.