The ability to set a custom home page in Google Chrome is not one of the things that ensure its place among the best browsers. Most browsers have this feature or one that’s similar. But that doesn’t mean learning how to change your home page in Chrome is intuitive. Especially since there are key differences between the process on mobile or tablet as compared to desktop Chrome.
Well, that’s exactly what this guide sets out to highlight. Whether you’re changing the home page to a search engine you prefer. Or if you just want it to navigate to a home page you frequent or one for work or a work-related intranet. This guide can show you how to set your home page to something more usable.
There will be one prerequisite, first
Now, the biggest challenge to overcome when trying to set a new or different home page in Google Chrome is obvious. Namely, the search giant has effectively removed access to the home button, to begin with, on desktop platforms. It did so several updates ago, too. So you might think it’s gone forever — although mobile users still have the UI. In order to get that back, you’ll want to follow our other guide — or learn to use keyboard shortcuts instead.
If you choose to use the requisite keyboard shortcut instead, that’s going to vary depending on what system you use. But, for any system, inputting the shortcut will open up the home page in whatever tab you’re currently on.
- For Windows and Linux, you’ll need to first press and hold the “Alt” key and then press the “Home” key
- For Mac users, the keyboard combination is a bit different. You’ll start by holding the “⌘” and “Shift” keys before pressing “h”
- For Chrome OS and Chromebook users, you’ll open straight to the home page by pressing and holding “Alt” and then by pressing “h”
Those shortcuts can be used instead of following the above-mentioned guide. So if you’re good at remembering keyboard shortcuts or writing that down, that’ll save you some effort.
Here’s how to set a new or different home page in Google Chrome on desktop or on a mobile phone
The process to change to a new home page will be slightly different on a computer versus a mobile phone in Chrome but similar enough that it shouldn’t cause any issues. And we’ll include images below for both and both sets of steps in our guide below too. Just as we do with our other how-to walkthroughs.
- On a computer
- Navigate to Chrome Settings by first tapping or clicking the three-dot menu at the top right-hand side of the UI. Then select “Settings” near the bottom of the resulting menu
- On the Settings page, use the search bar at the top of the page with the term “home”
- If you’d like to turn on the Home icon in the navigation bar, select that slider toggle. Otherwise, just select the words or empty space for the “Show home button icon” from the resulting menu
- Chrome presents users with two options. The first is to return to the “New Tab Page” when using the Home button or keyboard shortcuts above. The second option is the one we’re looking for. Enter your preferred home page in that text field. We’ve entered “androidheadlines.com”
- Chrome will automatically save the changes so you can now exit Settings. Your home page is changed and the home button icon will appear next to your navigation bar — it’s shaped like a house
- From your phone
- Learning how to make a change to your home page in Chrome is almost identical to the guide above. But for mobile or tablet Chrome, the menus are laid out a bit differently. Regardless, you’ll start by tapping on the three-dot menu at the top right-hand side of the UI and then selecting the “Settings” option
- Next, scroll down to the “Advanced” subheading and select the “Homepage” option
- Here, you can toggle the Home icon on or off — it’s on by default. But there is also an option to launch to Chrome’s dedicated homepage — effectively the new tab page. Or to enter a custom web address. As shown in the images below, we’ve entered “androidheadlines.com”
- Next, hit the back arrow at the top-left of the UI. Chrome will save your changes automatically when you back out of the menu
2022-03-05 15:04:55