How to Prevent Google Chrome From Storing Browser History

Jim Tanous Read more August 6, 2021

Google Chrome has recently become the web browser of choice for many Mac and PC users. It’s fast, extensible, and relatively secure. But it has a notable flaw: unlike most browsers, Chrome has no user setting to prevent or automatically clear the browser history.

How to Prevent Google Chrome From Storing Browser History

Users can always manually clear the history, but doing so takes four clicks through three menus; hardly ideal. Luckily, there’s a trick you can use to prevent browsing history from being recorded in Chrome.

Here’s how you can get this done.

Preventing Google Chrome from Storing Browser History

Chrome stores the browser history in a file on your computer’s drive. If we limit Chrome’s ability to modify that file, it won’t be able to record any web addresses.

To start, first go into Chrome and manually clear your history by pressing Cmd + Y for OS X or Ctrl + H for Windows and click Clear browsing data. You can also type Ctrl + Shift + Del to bring up the Clear browsing data window.
Now, make sure the box Clear Browsing History is checked, select All time from the drop-down menu and then click the Clear Browsing Data button at the bottom of the window to complete the process. This gives us a blank slate from which to start.
Now we have to restrict access to Chrome’s history file. First, quit Chrome to prevent any conflicts, and then find Chrome’s history file. In macOS, the history file is stored at the following location: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/DefaultOn a Windows machine, go to: C:Users\[UserName]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\DefaultNote that you may need to enable Windows Explorer’s Show Hidden items option in order to see the AppData folder.
In either of these locations, you’ll find a file called History with no file extension. This is the file we need to lock.
In macOS, right-click on the file and choose Get Info (or highlight the file and press Cmd + I). Under “General,” check the box for Locked, this will prevent Chrome from modifying this file and thus stop any future browsing history from being recorded. For Windows, right-click on the History file and choose Properties.
In the Properties window, check the box for Read-only and then press Apply.
Once you’ve locked the History file, open Chrome and start browsing. Then head to your history list and you’ll see that Chrome reports “No history entries found.”

That’s it! If you want to start recording your browsing history again, simply repeat the appropriate steps for Mac or Windows above and uncheck the locked or read-only boxes.

Browsing in Incognito Mode

At this point, some of you are undoubtedly asking, “why not just use Incognito Mode?” It’s true that Incognito Mode will prevent Chrome from recording browsing history, but it also blocks cookies and interferes with many extensions. Also, preventing Chrome from recording browsing history means you do not have to remember to browse in Incognito Mode if you never want Chrome to record your browsing history.

Chrome History Prevention

If you want the benefit of extensions and cookies, such as having websites remember your account info, but simply don’t want your browsing history recorded, the method described above is a good compromise.

Of course, if you want to reverse what you did, enabling Chrome to resume recording your browsing history again, just find that same history file and unlock it on a Mac or change it to read and write on Windows.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like this TechJunkie article: Stay Focused Chrome Extension Review.

Do you have any suggestions on how to improve your privacy using Chrome? If so, please leave us a comment below!