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up vote 32 down vote favorite
10

I accidentally visited gist.gihub.com (note the missing t), and now that URL auto completes each time I start typing gist.…. How can I remove this URL?

I've tried removing it from my history, but that doesn't help:

enter image description here

(note the empty search results)

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Did you remove all the history or just the last entry ? – Ioan Paul Pirau Aug 26 '11 at 21:11
Sry, don't have Chrome, but have you tried pressing [del] while targeting/hovering that entry? – ragnq Aug 26 '11 at 21:12
This question has been asked before, but heres the How to Answer[1]. [1]: superuser.com/questions/326531/… – Keltari Aug 26 '11 at 21:13
Yup, Keltari’s right; removing URLs is the same as removing titles (like in the other question). However, see my addendum to make it easier if you visited a while ago. – Synetech Aug 26 '11 at 21:19
2  
Well, this seems to be an issue. – Chad Feller Aug 26 '11 at 22:30
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5 Answers

up vote 40 down vote accepted

Highlight the item (using your keyboard arrows) and use shift+delete

(Note that on the Mac you seem to need to also press fn, so fn+shift+delete)

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1  
This works. Although it should be mentioned that rather "for example your keyboard", you must use your keyboard. You cannot leave an item highlighted with your mouse, and leaving the mouse-button down will prevent Shift+Delete from deleting. – Ian Boyd Mar 25 '12 at 13:48
1  
Didn't work for me on 10.7.4, chrome 19.0.1084.52 – Heath Borders Jun 6 '12 at 13:25
+1 works for me on Lion 10.7.4 with Chrome 20.0.1132.47 – opyate Jun 29 '12 at 14:25
For, me my "delete" key didn't work, but my "Del" key did. – Mark Stosberg Nov 6 '12 at 20:21
up vote 5 down vote
+50

Low level answer, if you want to know the whole list:

This is stored in an sqlite3 database in Google Chrome's userprofile folder, on Linux it's located in

~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Top Sites

You can use SQLite3 to have a look at it:

me@local~/.config/google-chrome/Default$ cp Top\ Sites ts.sqlite
me@local~/.config/google-chrome/Default$ sqlite3 ts.sqlite ...
sqlite> .schema
...
CREATE TABLE thumbnails (url LONGVARCHAR PRIMARY KEY,url_rank INTEGER ,...
sqlite> select url_rank,url from thumbnails order by url_rank;
0|http://android.stackexchange.com/
...
21|http://archive.org/
23|https://android.googlesource.com/
24|http://meta.android.stackexchange.com/

To answer your question:
You can delete or edit an entry using regular SQL commands, but be sure that Chrome is not running, i.e. the file is not opened (by Chrome). Also note that I did all actions on a copy because of that (was only looking).

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this would be a really great answer if you could fill in the missing parts currently hidden by "...". What is the delete statement? and ... why don't show tables or .tables work? – Abe Jan 25 at 19:50
The "..." just just hide the standard login prompt from sqlite3, my Top Sites ranked 1-20 which I didn't want to disclose and parts of the schema that are not necessary for the answer. SQLite uses standard SQL statements, so just write the statement yourself if you're familiar with it. I didn't include that delete statement on purpose. Type .help to get help on SQLite usage or see the man page here: linux.die.net/man/1/sqlite3 – ce4 Jan 25 at 20:14
Sorry, I had two errors; first was misspelling the file extension .sqlite (so .schema returned nothing; so I thought that your create statement was a command to be issued ...) and then assuming that familiar mysql commands like show tables; must be standard. But now that I am over those hurdles I should be okay. – Abe Jan 25 at 23:06
so, after doing sqlite3 Top\ Sites; delete from thumbnnails where url = "http://www.example.com";, I still see the unwanted site. Also, for the record, the README says "Google Chrome settings and storage represent user-selected preferences and information and MUST not be extracted, overwritten or modified except through Google Chrome defined APIs.". In any case, thanks for getting me a chance to check out sqlite. – Abe Jan 25 at 23:18
:-) Yeah, "show tables" is not SQL really, it's a little different in sqlite, I also have to use .help each time I use it to get it right... – ce4 Jan 25 at 23:19
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up vote 1 down vote

I found a solution.

Highlight the item in the address bar drop-down box by pressing the left mouse button over it, but don't release the mouse button, continue holding it. Then press shift with your other hand, hold it, then take the hand with your mouse up and while keeping the button pressed , press the delete button with your little finger on the right hand.

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1  
Tried, and failed. It deletes the autocompleted portion of the url, but leaves it in the auto-complete history. – Ian Boyd Mar 25 '12 at 13:45
up vote 1 down vote

I have found several places that mention Fn+Shift+Del for a mac and Shift+Delete for windows. I have windows, and I have found that I often needed Fn+Shift+Delete.

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up vote -1 down vote

You’ll need to either remove the offending URL from your history, or use the correct URL enough times to override the other one (ie, make it most-visited).

Removing the bad one is quicker and simpler, so open the History page and click the Edit items… link to the right. Now select the entry with gihub.com and click the Remove selected items… button at the top of the page. (Consider restarting Chrome to be certain that it is using the updated history.)

If you visited it too long ago and cannot find it easily, you may want to use a History-page extension such as History2, History 2, or eHistory to simplify editing the history.

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As I noted in my question (and showed in the picture accompanying the question), I have already removed the offending site from my history. The extensions you listed were not able to find it in my history either. – David Wolever Aug 26 '11 at 22:17
What did you search for? Simplify the search as much as possible, eg: gihub Have you restarted Chrome since you entered the incorrect URL? Did you bookmark the bad URL when you went there? Also, did you try entering the correct one a dozen or so times? – Synetech Aug 26 '11 at 22:24
I searched for gihub.com (as you can see in the screenshot), but searched for gihub and similar also fail in the standard history and the various plugins. Chrome has been restarted. I didn't bookmark the bad URL. – David Wolever Aug 26 '11 at 22:32
Hmm, well it’s drawing that string from somewhere. You could always resort to opening the History* files in a hex-editor, doing a search for the string, then editing it (eg replacing the first character with # or something. Did you try overriding the most-visited by navigating to the correct URL a bunch of times? (Make sure to do so in a new tab each time. I used this method to bump some sites up in the MRU section of the new-tab page.) – Synetech Aug 26 '11 at 22:43
Well, since it can be fixed by clearing the history, it is definitely being drawn from the history, so editing the History files directly would be a relatively easy way to fix it without wiping out the rest of history (which personally, I am loathe to do). – Synetech Aug 27 '11 at 0:08
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