The Cluttered Interface
Google Chrome features a built-in “Reading List,” designed to let you save articles to read later without cluttering up your permanent bookmarks. By default, this feature places a prominent “Reading List” button permanently on the far right side of your Bookmarks Bar, taking up valuable horizontal space. Additionally, whenever you click the star icon to bookmark a page, Chrome intercepts the action and forces you to choose between “Add bookmark” or “Add to reading list.” For users who rely strictly on traditional bookmarks or third-party apps like Pocket, this constant prompting and the unremovable button are highly annoying interface clutter.
Removing the Feature
To streamline your bookmarking workflow and disable the Reading List completely in Google Chrome, you must modify the browser’s internal experimental flags, as there is no standard toggle in the settings menu.
Open a new tab in Google Chrome. Click into the address bar at the very top of the window, type exactly chrome://flags, and press Enter. This will open the internal experiments page. In the search box at the top of this page, type Reading List. The list will filter down, and you should see a specific flag explicitly named Reading List. Click the dropdown menu located to the right of this flag (which is likely set to “Default”) and change it to Disabled. A blue button labelled Relaunch will immediately appear at the bottom right of the window. Click it to restart the browser. When Chrome reopens, the Reading List button will vanish from your Bookmarks Bar, and the bookmark star will instantly save pages without prompting.