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Guide

How to stop a site appearing in Chrome's address bar suggestions

One letter into the address bar and there it is, ahead of everything you actually meant to type. Those suggestions are built from your own browsing history, which means you can remove them — two keystrokes for the quick fix, a few minutes for the lasting one.

Updated August 19, 2026 · Applies to Chrome on Windows, Mac, and Linux

First: remove the suggestion itself

  1. Click the address bar — or press Ctrl+L (Mac: ⌘+L) — and start typing the site's name until the unwanted suggestion appears in the drop-down.
  2. Press the ↓ arrow key until that suggestion is highlighted. It has to be highlighted, not just visible.
  3. Press Shift+Delete on Windows or Linux — Shift+Fn+Delete on a Mac. The suggestion disappears immediately.
  4. Repeat with any other spelling you've used for the same site — each way you've typed it can hold a suggestion of its own.

This works on history-based suggestions — the rows showing a small clock icon or the page's own icon. On recent versions of Chrome you can also hover over one of those rows and click the × that appears at its right-hand end. Rows with a magnifying glass are search predictions from your search engine; they can't be removed one by one, and they're covered further down.

Why it comes back: the history behind the suggestion

Removing a suggestion doesn't remove its source. The drop-down is fed by your browsing history and by Chrome's own ranking of the places you visit often — a separate store from the history list you scroll through. As long as the visits are still recorded, the suggestion can be rebuilt. So delete the underlying entries too:

  1. Open the history page: press Ctrl+H (Mac: ⌘+Y), or type chrome://history into the address bar and press Enter.
  2. Type the site's name into the Search history box at the top.
  3. Tick the checkbox next to every entry it finds, press Delete in the top-right corner, and confirm with Remove.
  4. Search again with any other spelling or a related word — one site often leaves entries under several titles.

If it's adult sites you're clearing out more generally, the guide to deleting porn from Chrome history walks through the whole routine, autocomplete included.

The nuclear option: clear the browsing history wholesale

Clearing your browsing history resets the address bar's ranking along with the entries, so a stubborn suggestion loses everything it was built on:

  1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Mac: ⌘+Shift+Delete), or go to Settings → Privacy and security → Delete browsing data (older versions label it Clear browsing data) — also reachable at chrome://settings/clearBrowserData.
  2. Set the time range. All time clears the ranking completely.
  3. Tick Browsing history; leave anything you want to keep unticked.
  4. Click Delete data (older versions: Clear data).

Be clear about the cost before you do it: this takes every site's history in that range with it, not just the one. Familiar pages stop autocompleting for a while, the history list empties for that range, and if you're signed in with sync on for history, the deletion applies across your signed-in devices too.

If it's a suggested search, not a site

Rows with a magnifying glass are predictions from your search engine, not from your browser history, so Shift+Delete doesn't touch them. The browser's only switch for them is Autocomplete searches and URLs, under Settings → You and Google → Sync and Google services (chrome://settings/syncSetup). Turning it off stops Chrome sending what you type to your search engine — which ends search predictions entirely, for everything you type, not just one topic. That is the trade-off. A gentler alternative if Google is your engine and you're signed in: some predictions draw on your account's search history, and deleting the relevant searches at myactivity.google.com removes their source while leaving predictions on.

What this routine misses

Being honest about the steps above:

What this can't do

Neither the steps above nor any browser extension — Sunda Spotless included — can reach records kept outside your browser:

  • Your internet provider's connection logs
  • Your router's or DNS resolver's logs at home
  • Monitoring software on an employer's or school's network or device
  • History already synced to your other devices (until those devices sync a deletion)
  • Your Google account's Web & App Activity — that lives at myactivity.google.com, not in the browser

Questions people ask next

Why doesn't Shift+Delete remove the suggestion?

Two usual reasons. The row has to be highlighted first — press the ↓ key until it is, then press Shift+Delete (on a Mac, Shift+Fn+Delete, because the Mac Delete key on its own is a backspace). And the shortcut only works on history-based suggestions — rows with a magnifying glass are search predictions from your search engine and can't be removed one by one.

Does removing a suggestion also delete the site from my history?

No. Shift+Delete only takes the row out of the drop-down. The visits themselves stay listed at chrome://history until you delete them there — and while they remain, Chrome can rebuild the suggestion from them.

I removed the suggestion and it came back. Why?

Suggestions are rebuilt from your history and from how often you visit a site. If the history entries are still there, or you visit the site again — even once — the suggestion can reappear. Deleting the entries at chrome://history stops the rebuilding; only staying away, or keeping the site out of history entirely, stops the re-seeding.

Can I remove one suggested search instead of turning predictions off?

Not from the drop-down — search predictions come from your search engine, not your browser history. If you use Google while signed in, some predictions draw on your account's search history, and deleting the relevant searches at myactivity.google.com removes their source without turning the feature off.