How to Disable the Google Chrome ‘Omnibox Trending Searches’ on Android

What Are Omnibox Trending Searches?

When you tap on the address bar (the Omnibox) in Google Chrome on your Android smartphone, a dropdown list appears. Before you even begin typing a URL or query, Chrome often populates this list with “Trending Searches”—a list of popular news topics, celebrity gossip, or sports scores that other people in your region are currently Googling.

If you find these suggestions distracting, irrelevant to your interests, or simply a waste of screen space when you are trying to access your recent history, you can disable the trending feature entirely.

How to Disable Trending Searches in Chrome for Android

You can turn off these suggestions directly within the Google Chrome settings menu.

1. Open the Google Chrome app on your Android device.
2. Tap the More (three dots) icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
3. Select Settings from the dropdown menu.
4. Scroll down the list and tap on Google Services (often located under the “You and Google” section).
5. Look for the setting labelled Autocomplete searches and URLs.
6. Tap the toggle switch to turn it off.

Note: Disabling this toggle will stop the trending searches, but it will also stop Chrome from suggesting autocomplete predictions based on your personal search history as you type.

If you want to keep your personal autocomplete but exclusively remove the global trending topics, you must disable a hidden Chrome Flag:

1. Type chrome://flags into the Chrome address bar and press Enter.
2. In the search box on the Experiments page, type Omnibox trending.
3. Find the flag titled Omnibox Trending Zero Prefix Suggestions.
4. Change the dropdown menu from “Default” to Disabled.
5. Tap the blue Relaunch button at the bottom of the screen.

Once Chrome restarts, tapping the address bar will only show your recent queries and bookmarks, free from global trending news.