How to Change Your New Tab Page in Chrome (2026)

Chrome has no setting for typing a custom new tab URL. To change the new tab page, you can customize the built-in page with the Customize Chrome button, install a new tab extension from the Chrome Web Store, open a custom homepage with a shortcut, or set the NewTabPageLocation policy on a managed device.

This guide walks through all four, explains the prompt Chrome shows after an extension takes over the page, shows how to undo each change, and covers the equivalent steps in Microsoft Edge and Brave. The Chrome and Edge steps were checked against Google's and Microsoft's current documentation.

What Chrome lets you change, and what it doesn't

Chrome has three "first page" settings, and they are easy to mix up:

• Startup page. What opens when you launch Chrome. Lives under Settings, then On startup.
• Homepage. What opens when you press the Home button. Lives under Settings, then Appearance.
• New tab page. What opens when you press Ctrl+T on Windows and Linux or ⌘+T on a Mac.

Google's help center puts the first two plainly: "Your startup page is the one that shows when you first launch Chrome on your device. Your homepage is the one you go to when you select Home." The new tab page is neither. You can set the startup page and the homepage to any address you like, but the new tab page only offers cosmetic controls: a theme, a background, shortcuts, and cards. There is no field for a URL, and there has not been one for years.

That gap is why this question keeps getting asked, and why the answer depends on what you actually want.

Option 1: Customize Chrome's built-in new tab page

If you mostly want a nicer background, fewer shortcuts, or no suggested content, you never need to leave Chrome.

1. Open the customizer

   Open a new tab. At the bottom right of the page, click Customize Chrome. A side panel opens.

2. Change the background or theme

   Under Appearance, select Change theme. Pick a collection, or choose Upload an image to use your own photo. In the same section you can switch the color scheme between Light, Dark, and Device. If you change your mind, select Reset to default Chrome.

3. Decide what the shortcuts show

   Under Shortcuts, choose My shortcuts for a set you curate or Most visited sites for an automatic one. To remove the row entirely, turn off Show shortcuts. To edit or delete a single shortcut, point at its icon, open the more menu, and choose Edit shortcut or Remove.

4. Trim the cards

   At the bottom of a new tab, click Customize, then Cards, then Customize Cards, and pick which ones to show or hide. Cards only appear while you are signed in to your Google Account.

This route keeps Google's search box and Chrome's own page load, and it syncs with your account. What it cannot do is put anything of yours on the page beyond links: no notes, no calendar, no sounds, no wallpaper rotation you control.

Option 2: Replace the new tab page with an extension

The supported way to make a new tab open something else is an extension. Extensions can declare a chrome_url_overrides entry for newtab in their manifest, and Chrome then loads the extension's page instead of its own. This is how every new tab dashboard, wallpaper, and to-do list in the Chrome Web Store works; Google's documentation lists new tab, bookmarks, and history as the pages an extension may override.

1. Pick an extension

   Open the Chrome Web Store and search for "new tab". Before you add anything, read the listing: how many users it has, when it was last updated, and what the privacy practices section says it collects. A page you will open dozens of times a day deserves a minute of scrutiny.

2. Add it to Chrome

   Click Add to Chrome, then Add extension in the confirmation dialog. The dialog lists the permission "Replace the page you see when opening a new tab"; that is the one permission this kind of extension needs, and a wallpaper or dashboard should not be asking for much more.

3. Confirm the change

   Open a new tab. The first time an extension takes over the page, Chrome shows a one-time prompt asking whether you meant to change it, with Keep it and Change it back buttons. Choose Keep it. If you pick Change it back, Chrome disables the extension; you can turn it on again later at chrome://extensions.

Dashy, which we make, is one of these extensions, and we are naming it first rather than pretending we have no dog in this. It turns the new tab into a calm, wallpaper-first page with ambient soundscapes and the widgets you choose: calendar, weather, notes, and tasks. It changes nothing else in Chrome, not your search engine and not your startup page. The original is in the store today, rated 4.7 by 273 people and showing its 2023 design; the ground-up rebuild arrives in October, and the two are set out side by side, with early access until then. If you want to understand the category before choosing one, start with our explainer on what a new tab dashboard is.

How to get Chrome's default new tab back

Open chrome://extensions, or choose Extensions and then Manage Extensions from the Chrome menu. Find the extension that replaced your page and either switch it off or click Remove. The next tab you open shows Chrome's own new tab page, with your theme and shortcuts exactly as you left them.

Option 3: Use a custom homepage and a keyboard shortcut

If what you want is a specific page, an intranet portal or a project board, and you do not want to install anything, Chrome's homepage gets you most of the way there.

1. Turn on the Home button

   Open Settings, then Appearance, and turn on Show Home button. Choose the custom option and enter the address of the page you want.

2. Learn the shortcut

   Chrome opens the homepage in the current tab with Alt+Home on Windows and Linux, or ⌘+Shift+H on a Mac. A new tab followed by that shortcut lands on your page in two keystrokes.

3. Optionally make it the startup page too

   Under Settings, then On startup, choose Open a specific page or set of pages and add the same address. Chrome then opens it whenever it launches.

Be honest with yourself about this one: the new tab itself still shows Google's page, and you are relying on a habit. It is a fine answer for one page you open constantly, and a poor one if you want the tab to feel like yours.

Option 4: Set a new tab URL with an enterprise policy

Chrome does have a real setting for a custom new tab URL. It is just not in the Settings screen. The NewTabPageLocation policy, in Google's words, "configures the default New Tab page URL and prevents users from changing it." The catch is where it applies. On Windows the policy only works on machines joined to an Active Directory or Microsoft Entra domain or enrolled in Chrome Enterprise Core, and on macOS only on devices managed through MDM, MCX, or Chrome Enterprise Core. On a personal laptop Chrome ignores it.

If you do manage a fleet, the Windows registry value looks like this:

Key:   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Google\Chrome
Name:  NewTabPageLocation
Type:  REG_SZ
Value: https://intranet.example.com/start

Use a fully canonicalized URL with the scheme included; Google notes that Chrome falls back to https:// if it is missing. You can confirm the policy landed at chrome://policy. Note that this policy does not decide what opens on startup; that is controlled by the RestoreOnStartup policies.

Which option should you pick?

A rough rule: if you want the page to look better, customize Chrome. If you want the page to do something for you, install an extension. If you want one internal page and nothing installed, use the homepage shortcut. If you administer other people's browsers, use the policy.

Microsoft Edge

Edge runs the same engine as Chrome, so the same four options exist with slightly different labels.

Built-in controls. Open a new tab and click the Page settings gear near the top right. Under Page layout you can choose Focused, Inspirational, Informational, or Custom. Focused is the closest thing to a quiet page: a search box, a row of quick links, and little else. To silence the news feed, look for the Content setting and turn it off; the exact wording varies by Edge version and region, and on some builds you switch the layout to Custom or Focused first, then set the content option to off or headings only.

Extensions. Edge has its own add-ons store, and it also installs extensions from the Chrome Web Store once you open edge://extensions and turn on Allow extensions from other stores. After an extension changes the new tab, Edge shows a one-time notice asking whether to keep the change. Choose Keep changes; Restore settings puts Edge's page back.

Managed devices. Edge has its own NewTabPageLocation policy with the same rules: Windows machines that are domain-joined or enrolled in device management, and Macs managed through MDM or MCX. Microsoft's documentation adds one useful detail for administrators: if you want a blank tab, the value is about:blank, not about://blank.

Brave

Brave is the one Chromium browser where you can point every new tab at a URL without installing anything.

1. Choose what a new tab shows

   Open Settings and select Get started, or go straight to brave://settings/getStarted. Find New tab page shows and pick Dashboard, Homepage, or Blank page.

2. Set the homepage

   If you chose Homepage, open Appearance in Settings, turn on Show home button, and enter your address. From now on every new tab, and every new window, opens that page.

Brave's own dashboard is worth a look before you replace it: its Customize Dashboard menu lets you switch the background images off for a plain gradient, and the Blank page option gives you an empty tab if that is all you want. If the Homepage setting does not seem to take effect, the usual culprit is an installed extension that overrides the new tab; check brave://extensions. Brave installs Chrome Web Store extensions directly, so everything in Option 2 applies here too.

If your new tab changed without you asking

A new tab that suddenly shows Yahoo, Bing, or a search page you have never heard of almost always means an extension or a bundled program changed it. Open chrome://extensions and remove anything you do not recognize. If the page still will not go back, open Settings, then Reset settings, then Restore settings to their original defaults, and confirm. Google's help page says this restores the new tab page, startup page, default search engine, and pinned tabs, and it turns off extensions and themes. It leaves your bookmarks, history, and saved passwords alone.

What to do, in one paragraph

Chrome will not let you type a new tab URL, and it is not going to start. Customize the built-in page if you want it prettier, install a new tab extension if you want it to work for you, lean on the homepage shortcut if you want one page and no installs, and use the policy if you manage the machines. Edge follows the same script; Brave is the one browser that hands you a plain Homepage option. Whatever you choose, the point of the exercise is the same: you open this page more often than any other, and it should be yours.