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Chrome's Omnibox keeps sites that I most frequently visit - and this is good. However, one of my most visited pages has its URL changed, and I want to remove this from the Chrome Omnibox suggestions, how can I do so ?

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    I just checked, you can't delete a URL if it's saved in your favourites. Keep that in mind.
    – user375345
    Oct 4, 2014 at 20:38

4 Answers 4

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You can do it like this:

  • Use your arrow keys to navigate to the entry, then

    • On PC, use ShiftDel.

    • On a small Mac keyboard, use FnShiftDelete ⌫.

    • On a full Mac keyboard with numpad, you can just hit ShiftDelete ⌦.

The entry will disappear, but it might show up if you type another set of characters... Repeat it there.

A video demonstration shows how I clean the suggestions for the u character.

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    Regrettably, this only works for URLs, not for Chrome's autosuggestions, which often clutter the limited number of items in the dropdown (6). Nov 30, 2011 at 10:04
  • Works partly in 17.0.963.46. I've managed to remove sample.com/index.php, but not just sample.com (and yes, I've removed it from the search engines).
    – Alec Mev
    Feb 11, 2012 at 13:02
  • @MyFaJoArCo: Well, it's normal that it would appear as the address bar can also be used to search for things using your configured search engine. Feb 11, 2012 at 13:59
  • @TomWijsman That's not my case, I've set up a custom search engine, without suggestions ("google.com/search?q=%s"), so it shouldn't normally display sample.com. Secondly, it looks just the same as a simple visited link (the same icon and text color as sample.com/index.php). Thirdly, if that was a suggestion - it isn't random, it's like I write "s" and always get superuser.com instead of stackexchange.com, for example.
    – Alec Mev
    Feb 11, 2012 at 17:45
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    @TomWijsman History is clear (by searching example.com), I don't have any bookmarks/favorites, it isn't in the FVS list (it's the one on a new tab, right?). I think it's a history glitch, something I can't see left in it. However, I don't want to clear the whole history to solve this, sometimes I forget some addresses. It's not that I'm very concerned about this, just wanted to be sure, that I didn't forget to check something obvious.
    – Alec Mev
    Feb 11, 2012 at 18:40
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Unfortunately, the suggestion by Tom Wijsman does not work for me - the site continues to appear with a clock icon. I found a related question with an answer which fixed it for me, by obliterating the History Provider Cache file, which is located:

Mac OS X

~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/

Windows Vista:

%localappdata%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

If you want to keep your other history, you can search the History Provider Cache for the offending sites and remove them.

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  • However, this does not delete a single entry. Funny, you can do your suggestion by just wiping the history from the settings. Note the keeps sites that I most frequently visit - and this is good. in the question, which I think is also stored in that file. Indeed there is a weird thing going on, that only the globe icons work while the clock icons do not. Try waiting a small bit before hitting Shift + Delete... Mar 17, 2012 at 6:42
  • If I remember correctly removing the History Provider Cache does not obliterate all of your history, which is stored in a separate file "History". The History Provider Cache is just that - a cache. However, you can still search the History Provider Cache and remove only the offending sites.
    – lid
    Mar 23, 2012 at 9:46
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I would agree with Lid that Tom Wijsman's solution was not what fixed it for me. Lid's solution was closer, and one that I have tried several times but still could not get to work. I understand OP was looking to remove specific suggestions, but if you were in the same situation as I was (where I was unable to remove anything like that), the following should help you out.

I tried the keyboard shortcut deletes Tom Wijsman describes, clearing my entire history (since "Beginning of Time"), disabling syncing (in case the entries were stored in the cloud), disabling Omnibox History and Autofill specifically from syncing, clearing my synced data, uninstalling and reinstalling Chrome, and removing the History Provider Cache. None of these were removing the suggestions Chrome would give me based off my past brow

Instead of removing the History Provider Cache file, I actually had to remove the History file.

It's in the same path (Mac OS X /Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/ and on Windows I would assume C:\Users{username}\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default as stated before).

I'm not sure why this was not being cleared out with the regular Chrome history clear. I noticed the file was 9.3MB.

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I know of another way of getting rid of unwanted suggestions in the Omnibox, but it does require shutting off suggestions from logged history.

To do it, you type in chrome://flags and scroll down to Disable 'shortcuts' in the Omnibox and enable this.

There are also other options, such as the Use new scoring in HistoryQuickProvider, and Inline HistoryQuickProvider; however, I have not used these. I assume they would work, though.

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  • Unfortunately "Disable 'shortcuts'" has been removed from Chromium. I'm on 67.0.3380.0 and am suffering from hideously slow typing, particularly in the Omnibox. Jan 25, 2019 at 13:54

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