If you look at the absolute top-left corner of the Google Chrome window (or the top-right corner on older versions), you will see a small, downward-pointing arrow button next to your browser tabs. Clicking this button opens a drop-down menu that allows you to search through all of your currently open tabs and view your recently closed tabs.
This “Tab Search” feature is incredibly useful for users who constantly have 50 or more tabs open. However, if you are a minimalist who rigorously manages your browser and rarely exceeds five open tabs at a time, this persistent UI button is completely unnecessary and simply takes up valuable space in your title bar. You can disable this feature.
How to Remove the Tab Search Button
There is no graphical toggle in the standard settings to remove this button. Instead, you must use Chrome’s hidden experimental flags menu.
- 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/#enable-tab-search - The browser will open the “Experiments” page, with a setting specifically labelled “Enable Tab Search” highlighted in yellow.
- Click the drop-down menu next to this setting (which is currently set to “Default” or “Enabled”).
- Select Disabled from the list.
- A large blue button labelled Relaunch will appear at the absolute bottom of the browser window. Click it to restart Chrome.
Once the browser restarts, look at your title bar. The downward-facing arrow button will be completely gone, leaving you with a perfectly clean tab bar.