The Hover Clutter
To help users manage dozens of open tabs, Google Chrome utilizes a feature called “Tab Hover Cards.” When you rest your mouse cursor over an inactive tab at the top of the screen for more than a second, a massive rectangular box pops up, displaying the full title of the webpage, the URL, and a large preview thumbnail image of the site. While this helps you visually identify a lost tab, it is incredibly annoying if you are simply moving your mouse across the top of the screen to click a different application. The massive preview images constantly pop up, blocking your view of the actual web page you are trying to read. You can easily revert to the classic, simple tooltip text.
How to Turn Off Tab Hover Cards
You can strip the visual flair away by disabling the underlying Chrome flag.
- Open the Google Chrome desktop browser.
- Click inside the main address bar, type exactly
chrome://flags, and press Enter. - At the top of the Experiments page, you will see a search box. Type Tab Hover Card Images.
- The specific flag will appear highlighted in yellow.
- Click the dropdown menu next to it (it likely says “Default”) and change it to Disabled.
- A large blue Relaunch button will appear at the bottom of the screen. Click it to restart the browser.
A Cleaner Interface
When Chrome reopens, the massive, distracting preview images are completely gone. Now, when you hover your mouse over a background tab, you will simply see a tiny, classic text box displaying the name of the website, keeping your interface clean and out of your way.