If you use Google Chrome on a Windows laptop with a touchscreen or a precision touchpad, you might be familiar with the “Pull to Refresh” gesture. If you are at the very top of a web page and drag your finger downwards, Chrome will automatically reload the page, indicated by a small spinning arrow icon.
While useful on smartphones, this feature is incredibly frustrating on a desktop or laptop. If you are trying to carefully scroll through a web app or accidentally swipe down too aggressively on your touchpad, you can easily trigger a refresh. This can cause you to lose unsaved data in forms or interrupt a video you were watching. To prevent these accidental reloads, you can disable the gesture completely.
How to Turn Off “Pull to Refresh” in Chrome
You must dive into Chrome’s hidden Experiments menu to disable this touch behavior.
- Open the Google Chrome browser.
- Click inside the address bar at the top of the screen.
- Type the following exact command and press Enter:
chrome://flags/#pull-to-refresh - The browser will load the Experiments page, automatically scrolling down to highlight the Pull-to-refresh gesture setting in yellow.
- Click the drop-down menu on the right side of the highlighted setting (which currently says “Default”).
- Select Disabled from the drop-down list.
- A large blue Relaunch button will appear at the bottom right of the window. Click it to restart Chrome.
Once Chrome restarts, you can drag down on your touchscreen or touchpad as aggressively as you want while at the top of a page. The browser will simply stop scrolling when it hits the top edge, and the page will never accidentally reload.