Bookmarks bar or sometimes called favorites bar is a toolbar menu on Google Chrome desktop that is dedicated to storing bookmarked pages so you can access them quickly without having to navigate through menus and folders (in most cases).
However, there are some pros and cons to this menu. Albeit makes website shortcuts easier to access, the toolbar took a bit of screen space which makes the area for displaying a website page is reduced. Probably it’s not that much but if you are into a cleaner look, then you should hide the bar.
In this guide, I’m going to show you how to hide (and show, because the process is the same) the bookmarks bar on Google Chrome desktop. I’m using Chrome version 110 but rest assured you can follow the guide on whichever version is installed.
Alright, let’s get into it.
Table of Contents
How to hide Chrome’s bookmarks bar
1. Launch Chrome and open a website page. Any website doesn’t really matter. In this example, I have my bookmarks bar shown.
2. Right-click on the bookmarks bar and click on Show bookmarks bar.
3. Alternatively, you can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+B.
4. The bookmarks bar is now hidden when you visit a web page.
5. But it will still appear on a new tab page.
The same action menu (step 2) and shortcut (step 3) can be used to show or hide the bookmarks bar depending on the condition. I personally found the shortcut key to be extremely helpful when I need to access my bookmarks list fast.
How to remove bookmarks
Hiding the bookmarks is basically like putting dirt under the rug — it’s still there and you will have to deal with it later. Instead of collecting bookmarks like action figures, try to keep the list clean by removing some that no longer serve a purpose (or you could backup them somewhere else for the sake of a cleaner browser.
There are several ways to clean up your bookmarks, some includes:
Right-click on a bookmark you want to remove, then select Delete. You can repeat the process for other bookmarks or even a bookmark folder.
2. Remove a bookmark by visiting the website
Visit a bookmarked page. Click the star icon on the right side of the address bar or press Ctrl+D and hit Remove.
This might sound a little less intuitive but I find myself using this method very often. Part of the reason is that I have to visit the website first to confirm if there is anything important. If nothing is there, then I could proceed to remove the bookmark.
How to bulk remove bookmarks
If you have tons of bookmarks or a bookmark folder containing a list of unused links, then consider this approach to remove them quickly.
1. Right-click on the bookmarks bar and select Bookmark manager.
2. Press Ctrl+A to select all items. Or you can also use Ctrl+LeftMouseClick to select items in no particular order.
3. Hit the Delete button.
And that’s pretty much how you show or hide the bookmark toolbar on Google Chrome. I hope this guide helps.
