Chrome’s new tab page is the screen you see dozens of times a day, and most people leave it exactly as it shipped — white background, a search bar, and a row of frequently visited sites. All of that is adjustable through a built-in panel that takes a few minutes to use. Here is how each option works and where to find it.
How to Open the Customize Chrome Panel
The entry point is a pencil icon in the bottom-right corner of any new Chrome tab. Click it and a side panel slides in from the right side of the browser window. This is the Customize Chrome panel, and every native new tab customization option lives inside it. You do not need a third-party extension or a trip to chrome://settings to get started — the panel is accessible from every new tab.
If the pencil icon is not visible, a third-party new tab extension may be running. Extensions designed to replace Chrome’s default new tab page — custom dashboards, speed dials, productivity start pages — take over the entire new tab experience. The Customize Chrome panel belongs to Chrome’s native new tab, and it disappears when another extension replaces that page. To check, open chrome://extensions, look for any extension listed as modifying the new tab page, and disable it temporarily. The pencil icon should reappear.
Setting a Background Image
The first section in the Customize Chrome panel is Background. Chrome gives you three ways to set one.
Upload an image. Click Upload an image and pick any file from your computer. Chrome scales and crops it to fill the browser window regardless of aspect ratio. Animated GIFs work through this upload path — the animation runs on every new tab you open. The file stays on your local machine and is not sent to Google’s servers.
Chrome’s curated gallery. Chrome ships with organized collections grouped by themes such as Earth, cityscapes, geometric art, and local photography. Click any collection thumbnail to browse the images inside it. At the top of the collection view there is a Refresh daily toggle. When it is on, Chrome automatically swaps in a different image from that collection each day when you open your first new tab in the morning. This is a low-maintenance way to keep the page from feeling static without managing images yourself.
No background. If you skip the Background section entirely, the new tab page uses the color settings from the Colors section as a plain background — a gradient or solid color, nothing photographic.
To remove a background you have already set, go back to the Background section in the panel and click the X on the current image. The Reset to default option at the bottom of the panel also clears it along with all other customizations.
Customizing Shortcuts
The row of small icon tiles below the search bar is Chrome’s shortcut grid. The Shortcuts section of the Customize Chrome panel controls everything about it.
Showing and hiding the shortcut grid. At the top of the Shortcuts section is a toggle: Show shortcuts. Turn it off and the entire grid disappears. If you want the new tab page to display only the search bar with no tiles below it, this is the setting to change.
Most visited sites vs. My shortcuts. When shortcuts are visible, Chrome offers two operating modes.
Most visited sites is the default. Chrome tracks your browsing history and populates the shortcut grid automatically with the pages it judges you visit most often. The list updates on its own as your habits shift. This mode requires no setup and stays current without maintenance. The trade-off is that you cannot control exactly which sites appear — a page you visit frequently for work can displace one you want to keep visible, and a site you have not visited in a while drops off without warning.
My shortcuts hands manual control to you. The grid shows only what you have explicitly added. Click the Add shortcut button that appears below your existing tiles, type a name and a URL, and the site becomes a permanent tile on the grid. It stays there regardless of how often you visit it. You can add up to 10 custom shortcuts in this mode.
Editing and removing shortcuts. In either mode, hover over a shortcut tile and a three-dot More button appears at its top-right corner. Click it for two options: Edit shortcut lets you change the display name or the URL; Remove deletes the tile.
The 10-shortcut ceiling matters in practice. Pinned shortcuts are useful as a quick-launch row for a small, stable set of daily tools — the five to ten sites you open every single session. If you have 30, 60, or several hundred pages you want to keep accessible over time, the shortcut grid is not built for that. That is what a bookmark collection is for, and it scales without limits.
Colors and Display Mode
The Colors section in the Customize Chrome panel adjusts how the browser looks beyond the new tab background image.
Light, Dark, and Device mode. A three-way toggle near the top of the Colors section lets you set Chrome to Light (the default white interface), Dark (dark grey frames, tabs, and new tab page text), or Device (Chrome follows whatever mode is set in your operating system). Switching to Dark affects Chrome’s own frame, tab bar, and new tab page — it does not apply dark mode to the web pages you visit. To force dark mode on websites as well, that requires a separate step in chrome://flags.
Color palette. Below the mode toggle, Chrome shows a grid of preset color combinations. Clicking one changes the accent color applied to the browser frame, tab strip, and new tab page elements throughout. A custom color picker is available if you want a specific hue rather than one of Chrome’s presets.
Both the mode setting and the color selection persist across Chrome sessions and sync to other devices when Chrome Sync is active on your account.
Chrome Web Store Themes
The Customize Chrome panel handles backgrounds and color adjustments. Chrome Web Store themes are a separate layer that goes further — a theme is an installable package that changes the browser frame design, the new tab page background, the tab strip appearance, and the overall color palette together as one coordinated set of changes.
To browse and install a Web Store theme:
- Go to
chrome://settings/appearance - Find the Themes row and click Open Chrome Web Store
- Browse the Themes category or search by style, color, or artist name
- Click a theme and click Add to Chrome
The theme applies in seconds. It covers the entire Chrome visual shell, not just the new tab page.
Two things to know before installing a theme. First, a Web Store theme overrides the background image you set through the Customize Chrome panel. If you want a specific personal photo as your new tab background, the Upload an image route in the panel is the right choice — installing a third-party theme would replace it. Second, to remove a Web Store theme, go to chrome://settings/appearance and click Reset to default in the Themes row. This uninstalls the theme and returns Chrome to its standard appearance. The Reset to default button inside the Customize Chrome panel does not remove Web Store themes.
The Cards Section
Below the shortcut grid, Chrome’s new tab page can display content cards — optional blocks of personalized information that surface things you might want to continue or return to. The Cards section in the Customize Chrome panel lists each card type with its own toggle.
Resume browsing. This card shows links from your recent browsing history along with related searches Chrome groups into a small feed. It is meant as a shortcut for continuing a research session — rather than opening your History page and searching through it, the card surfaces recent threads directly on the new tab page. If you prefer a clean new tab with no content feed, this is typically the first card to turn off.
Continue with these tabs. This card shows tabs that were open on your other signed-in Chrome devices within the last 24 hours. If you were reading an article on your phone before bed and want to pick it up on your laptop in the morning, this card surfaces it without manual searching. The card only works when you are signed in to Chrome with Sync active. If you use only one device or prefer to keep sessions separate, it has no practical value.
Drive priority. This card shows recent or flagged files from Google Drive. It appears most reliably on Google Workspace accounts — work or school accounts under an organization. Personal Google accounts may or may not see it depending on account configuration and Drive usage.
When all card toggles are off, the cards area of the new tab page is empty — a cleaner layout with nothing below the shortcut row.
What Opens When Chrome Starts
The Customize Chrome panel changes what the new tab page looks like once Chrome is already running. A separate setting in Chrome’s preferences controls what loads when Chrome first launches.
Go to chrome://settings and scroll to the On startup section. Three options are available:
Open the New Tab page. Chrome opens a single fresh tab — using whatever customizations you have set — and nothing else. This is the default. Each session starts clean with no leftover context from before.
Continue where you left off. Chrome restores every tab and window that was open the last time it was closed. If you work in a consistent set of tabs across sessions — a project management tool, email, a reference page — this is the fastest way to get back to that state without manually reopening anything. One practical note: if you had many tabs open, Chrome can be slow to launch using this option since it is restoring a full session.
Open a specific page or set of pages. Chrome opens a fixed list of URLs you define. Click Add a new page, enter any URL, and that page will open in a new tab every time Chrome launches. You can add as many pages as you want; each gets its own tab at startup. This suits dedicated work setups where every session starts with the same collection of tools.
The startup setting operates independently from the new tab customization. You can have a fully customized new tab page and still use Continue where you left off — the two settings do not conflict.
Resetting to Default
If you have made changes and want to go back to Chrome’s original new tab appearance, open the Customize Chrome panel and scroll to the bottom. Click Reset to default.
This action clears the custom background image, reverts shortcuts to Most visited sites mode, removes custom color selections, and returns card settings to their defaults. It does not affect your browsing history, bookmarks, passwords, or any other Chrome data — only the appearance settings managed through the Customize Chrome panel.
Web Store themes require a separate step. If a theme installed from the Chrome Web Store is active, the Reset to default button in the Customize Chrome panel will not remove it. Go to chrome://settings/appearance, find the Themes row, and click Reset to default there. This uninstalls the theme and returns Chrome’s frame to its standard appearance, after which the Customize Chrome panel controls the new tab background again.
Keeping Your Bookmarks as Useful as Your New Tab
Pinning shortcuts on the new tab page gives you fast, one-click access to the sites you open in nearly every session. For a handful of daily-use tools, it works well. The 10-shortcut limit reflects what this feature was designed for: a small, stable launch row, not a comprehensive archive of saved pages.
Most people who use Chrome regularly also have a bookmark collection that has grown well past 10 items — folders of saved articles, reference documentation, tools they need occasionally, links saved months ago and not opened since. Chrome’s native bookmark manager does not make those easy to use. There is no search that works across all folders at once, no indication of which links are still live, and no recovery path if a saved page goes offline.
Bookmend is a free Chrome extension that addresses the bookmark side of this. It adds full-text search across every bookmark folder you have, detects dead links automatically, and lets you recover pages through the Wayback Machine with a single click. No account sign-up required, and nothing needs to be imported — it works directly with the bookmarks already in your browser. If you rely on bookmarks for anything beyond daily shortcuts, Bookmend keeps that collection functional over time.
Frequently asked questions
Look for the pencil icon in the bottom-right corner of any new tab page. Clicking it opens the Customize Chrome side panel on the right side of the window. If you do not see it, check whether a third-party new tab extension is active — extensions that replace Chrome's default new tab page remove the pencil icon along with everything else native to that page.
Yes. Open the Customize Chrome panel, go to the Background section, and click Upload an image. You can select any photo from your computer, including animated GIFs. Chrome scales the image to fill the window. The file stays on your device and is not uploaded to Google's servers.
Open the Customize Chrome panel, make sure Show shortcuts is turned on, and select My shortcuts. An Add shortcut button appears in the shortcut grid. Click it, enter a name and a URL, and save. Chrome allows up to 10 custom shortcuts in this mode.
Hover over any shortcut tile on the new tab page. A three-dot More button appears at the top-right corner of the tile. Click it and choose Edit shortcut to update the name or URL, or Remove to delete the tile from the grid entirely.
Cards are optional content blocks that appear below the shortcut row. Current card types include Resume browsing (recent history and related searches), Continue with these tabs (tabs open on your other signed-in devices within the last 24 hours), and Drive priority (recent Google Drive files, typically on Workspace accounts). Each card has its own toggle in the Customize Chrome panel under Cards.
Yes. Open the Customize Chrome panel and turn off the Show shortcuts toggle. The entire shortcut grid disappears, leaving the new tab page with just the search bar and any active cards.
Go to chrome://settings/appearance and click Open Chrome Web Store, or visit the Chrome Web Store directly and browse the Themes category. Click any theme, then click Add to Chrome. The theme applies immediately and changes the browser frame, tab strip, and new tab background as a single package.
Open the Customize Chrome panel by clicking the pencil icon on any new tab, scroll to the bottom of the panel, and click Reset to default. This clears the background image, reverts shortcuts to Most visited sites, and restores the default color scheme. If a Web Store theme is active, you will also need to go to chrome://settings/appearance and click Reset to default in the Themes row to remove it.
Custom shortcuts and color settings sync if you are signed in to Chrome with Sync enabled. Background images you uploaded from your local computer do not sync to other devices. Web Store themes sync with your Chrome profile.
Most visited sites shows pages Chrome determines you visit most frequently, updated automatically as your browsing habits change. My shortcuts shows only pages you have manually pinned and keeps them in place permanently regardless of visit frequency. Most visited requires no maintenance but gives you no control over what appears. My shortcuts requires manual setup but stays exactly as you configure it.
Yes. Use the Upload an image option in the Background section of the Customize Chrome panel and select a GIF file from your computer. The animation plays on each new tab you open.
Go to chrome://settings and find the On startup section. Choose Open a specific page or set of pages, then click Add a new page and enter the URL you want Chrome to open at launch. You can add multiple pages — each opens in its own tab. Alternatively, choose Continue where you left off to restore all tabs from your last session.
When you select a background collection from Chrome's gallery and turn on Refresh daily, Chrome picks a different image from that collection each day when you open your first new tab in the morning. It rotates backgrounds automatically without any manual changes.
Open the Customize Chrome panel and go to the Cards section. Each card type — Resume browsing, Continue with these tabs, Drive priority — has its own toggle. Turn off the ones you do not want. When all card toggles are off, the cards area of the new tab page is empty.
Chrome allows up to 10 shortcuts in My shortcuts mode. If you regularly need quick access to more than 10 sites, the new tab shortcut grid is not the right tool — a well-organized bookmark collection handles any number of saved pages. Bookmend is a free Chrome extension that adds full-text search and dead-link detection to Chrome's existing bookmark folders, making a larger saved collection actually usable.
