Chrome users may be interested in disabling the tab hover previews that pop-up as you hover the cursor over browser tabs. This feature can be nice for some, but distracting for others.
We’ll show you how to disable those tab hover thumbnail previews (or Tab Hover Cards, as Chrome refers to them) in Chrome on Mac and other platforms too.
If you were happy about disabling Safari tab previews on Mac you’ll probably be equally excited about turning these off for Chrome as well.
How to Disable Tab Hover Previews in Chrome
This should work in Chrome for Mac, Windows, Chromebook / Chrome OS, and Linux, as well as for Chrome Canary and developer builds.
- Open the Chrome browser, if you haven’t done so already
- In the URL bar, enter the following and hit return:
- For “Tab Hover Cards” choose “Disabled” from the dropdown menu
- Relaunch Chrome
On new Chrome versions:chrome://flags/#tab-hover-card-images
On older Chrome versions:chrome://flags/#tab-hover-cards
Once Chrome has relaunched you can hover the cursor over the tabs and no preview thumbnail will generate or show up anymore.
This can sometimes make Chrome feel a bit faster, and perhaps even reduce it’s memory footprint a bit, since fewer resources are being used by the browser to render the thumbnail previews on hover.
While this is obviously for Chrome, if you’re a Mac user who uses multiple browsers you might find it nice to know how to turn off Safari tab previews on Mac as well.
