Google Chrome, like other browsers, saves your browsing history when you surf the web. Every page you visit is saved within Chrome’s History tab. From there, you (and other users on the same account) can view what pages you’ve visited in the browser.

As such, some users might prefer to turn off Chrome’s browsing history. And while Google’s flagship browser does have an option for clearing browsing history, it doesn’t include a specific built-in setting you can select to stop it from saving visited pages. Nevertheless, you can still disable Chrome’s browsing history with the methods below.

How to Stop Chrome Saving Your Browsing History With Incognito Mode

Incognito is a special private browsing mode for Google Chrome. When you activate Incognito mode, Chrome stops saving your browsing history. You can press the Ctrl + Shift + N hotkey to activate that mode in Chrome. Then the Incognito browsing window shown directly below will open.

Incognito mode

Enabling incognito is a simple way to disable browsing history, but Chrome doesn’t include a built-in option to start the browser in that mode. Google Chrome also stops saving cookies and site data with that mode enabled. If you want to turn off browsing history and browse in regular mode, you’ll need to apply any one of the alternative methods below.

How to Stop Google Chrome Saving Browsing History By Editing the Registry

You can disable browsing history in Google Chrome by tweaking the registry. This method involves adding a new Chrome key and SavingBrowserHistoryDisabled DWORD to the registry. You can do that with Windows 11’s Registry Editor in the following steps.

  1. First, press Win + S.
  2. Type regedit in Windows 11’s search box, and click Run as administrator to open the Registry Editor.
  3. Then navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies in the Registry Editor’s sidebar. Or you can enter that registry path in the address bar.
  4. Click the Policies key with your right mouse button and select New > Key.
    The Key option
  5. Type Google for the new key’s title.
  6. Right-click on the Google key you just added to the registry and select its New and Key options.
  7. Then input Chrome in the text box for the new key.
  8. Right-click the Chrome registry key and select the New option. Select DWORD (32-bit) Value on the submenu.
    The Key option
  9. Enter SavingBrowserHistoryDisabled to be the new DWORD’s title.
    The SavingBrowsingHistory DWORD
  10. Double-click the SavingBrowserHistoryDisabled DWORD to bring up an Edit DWORD window.
  11. Input 1 within the Value data box and click OK.
    The Edit DWORD window
  12. Then select to restart Windows from the Start menu.

How to Stop Google Chrome Saving Browsing History With Group Policy Editor

Group Policy Editor is an admin tool that includes some policy settings for Chrome. If you’re utilizing Windows 11 Pro or Enterprise, you can enable a policy setting that disables the saving of browsing history in Chrome. This is how you can turn off Chrome’s browsing history with Group Policy Editor.

  1. Press Win + X and click Run on the menu that opens.
  2. To open Group Policy Editor, enter gpedit.msc in Run and click OK.
  3. Double-click Computer Configuration and Administrative Templates in Group Policy Editor.
    The Local Group Policy Editor window
  4. Select Google > Google Chrome on the left side of Group Policy Editor.
  5. Double-click the Disable saving browser history setting to open its window.
  6. Then select Enabled on the Disable saving browsing history window, and click the Apply button.
  7. Select OK to exit.
  8. Restart Windows for the changes to come into effect.

Note that you’ll need to add a Google Chrome template to Group Policy Editor before you can configure its browsing history. To do that, you’ll need to download the required template by clicking ZIP file of Google Chrome templates on the Set Chrome Browser policies page. That webpage also provides full guidelines for how you can add the required template to Group Policy Editor.

How to Stop Google Chrome Saving Browsing History With an Extension

No History is a Google Chrome extension that stops the browser from saving your page history when enabled. That extension also includes an option for clearing Chrome’s history. You can disable browsing history with that extension as follows.

  1. Open the No History page.
  2. Click the Add to Chrome and Add extension buttons.
  3. Then you’ll see a No History button on Chrome’s toolbar. Click that button to open the extension.
    The No History Extension
  4. Select On to disable Chrome’s page history recording.

Stop Google Chrome Saving Your Browsing History

So, you don’t have to keep on manually erasing your browsing history in Chrome. Simply disable Google Chrome from saving your browsing history in the first place with the methods above. Then you can surf the web more privately.