The Blank Canvas on Startup
By default, when you launch Google Chrome, it opens to the “New Tab” page. This page features a Google search bar, the Google doodle, and a grid of your most visited websites. While this is a clean starting point, many users prefer their browser to be instantly productive the moment they click the icon.
If you start every single workday by opening your email, your company’s CRM, and a specific news website, forcing the browser to load a blank New Tab page first is simply an unnecessary extra step. You have to manually type the URLs or click bookmarks every single morning. Instead of accepting the default behavior, you can configure Chrome to automatically launch a specific set of websites—or restore your previous session—completely bypassing the standard New Tab page.
How to Change the Startup Behavior
You can change what Chrome does on launch via the On Startup settings.
- Open Google Chrome.
- Click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner and select Settings.
- In the left-hand sidebar, click on On startup.
- You will see three options. The first is “Open the New Tab page” (the default).
- To bypass it, select one of the following two options:
- Continue where you left off: This will reopen all the tabs you had active when you closed Chrome the day before.
- Open a specific page or set of pages: This allows you to define exactly which URLs open every time Chrome launches.
- If you chose the specific pages option, click Add a new page and paste the URL of your preferred starting point (e.g., your email inbox).
The next time you close and reopen Chrome, it will ignore the default New Tab page and immediately execute your preferred startup behavior, saving you time and clicks.