Google-chrome – Creating new tab in Chrome when typing into address bar

google-chromegoogle-chrome-extensionskeyboard shortcuts

This is something that other browsers can do by default, or at least Firefox. And up until recently I could accomplish the same thing with an extension called Chrome Toolbox by Google. However, it looks like the extension is broken – lots of the most recent reviews note issues with it.

So, this brings me to my question – is there ANY other way to obtain this capability? Another one I'd love is for items to come up in new tabs when I click on bookmarks in my bookmark bar. I still don't understand why these basic settings haven't been offered to Chrome users…

(Just to be clear, I understand you can do this via Alt+Enter, but I wish to be able to do it with one key rather than a key-combo.)

Best Answer

You can accomplish that by typing your search or your URL in the address bar and then click Alt+Enter -instead of just Enter-, so you don't need to install any add-on that probably will consume more resources than you need to perform that simple thing...

By doing that, Chrome will automatically open a new tab in background with your search, or with your URL if you typed an URL...

Note: in OSX it's Cmd+Enter.

Related Solutions

Windows – Chrome bookmark bar background with high contrast

If you have found a theme that is almost acceptable but would like to customize it further, this is how you do that in steps.

Step 1 : Allow the viewing of hidden files

In the Control Panel, open File Explorer Options.
Go to the View tab for a list of advanced settings
Under "Hidden files and folders" click "Show hidden files, folders, and drives"
Click OK

Step 2 : Find your theme

Open Windows Explorer
Navigate to C:\Users\[user-name]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions
Sort by date descending the list of folders that have strange names to find your theme (should be the most recent one).

Step 3 : Modify the theme

In the folder of the theme (or a sub-folder), open the file manifest.json in a text editor.

Find the "colors" section which will look like this:

"theme": {
  "colors": {
     "bookmark_text": [ 221, 221, 221 ],

and also :

    "images": {
     "theme_toolbar": "img/toolbar.png"

The color of the bookmarks text is given by "bookmark_text" and the numbers inside the parenthesis contain the RGB values (red, green, blue).
Change the number to the color you like. You may use a color-picker for that (picker1 or picker2 or any other).
If you wish to change the background color of the header, this is unfortunately specified by an image in "theme_toolbar". You could use the Chrome Theme Creator to build another one.
Save your changes and restart Chrome.

I suggest making a copy of the theme's folder before modifying the file manifest.json as a backup.

More information can be found in the articles :

Windows – Google Chrome opening without address bar, tabs, etc

I was able to solve this and get the "fix" to "stay" by:

F11 twice to get the controls back then
Moving the browser session to Monitor 2. It appears something was lost in one of my moves to Monitor 1 and moving it back to Monitor 2 allowed it to sort itself out.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – Chrome bookmark bar background with high contrast

Windows – Google Chrome opening without address bar, tabs, etc

Related Question