How to set a custom URL for Chrome’s new tab page

Updated 18 October 2026

Chrome has no setting that opens a website of your choice in every new tab. You can get close with the home button, your startup pages or a shortcut tile, an extension can send every new tab to an address you pick, and on a managed computer an administrator can set it with a policy.

Three settings that sound alike

Chrome treats these as three separate settings, and only two of them take a web address:

1. Put your site on the home button

1. Click the three-dot menu, then Settings, then Appearance.
2. Turn on Show home button.
3. Below it, choose the custom option and type your address into Enter custom web address.

Now press Ctrl+T, then Alt+Home (on a Mac, Cmd+T, then Cmd+Shift+H). The second shortcut opens your home page in the current tab, so your site is two keystrokes away and nothing needs installing.

2. Open it when Chrome starts

In Settings, go to On startup, choose Open a specific page or set of pages, click Add a new page, enter the address and click Add. This only covers the pages Chrome opens at launch. New tabs after that still show the normal new tab page.

3. Pin it to the new tab page as a shortcut

With Google as your search engine, open a new tab, click Add shortcut and paste the address. The site is then one click from every new tab. Chrome holds up to 10 of these, and our shortcuts guide covers the details.

4. Use an extension that redirects new tabs

Extensions are allowed to replace the new tab page; Google’s developer documentation calls this overriding it. A small group of extensions does only that: they send each new tab to an address you type into their settings. Search the Chrome Web Store for “new tab redirect” or “custom new tab URL”, check the permissions each one asks for, and pick one that is recently updated and well reviewed. Before you install one, know that:

• Chrome asks “Change back to Google?” on the first new tab. Choose Keep it. Here’s what that prompt does.
• The cursor may land in the page after the redirect. Press Ctrl+L (Cmd+L on a Mac) to jump to the address bar and search.
• Incognito windows keep Chrome’s page. Extensions can’t override the new tab page in Incognito.
• Only one extension can own the new tab. If two try, Chrome gives it to the one installed most recently.

5. Work, school or Linux: the NewTabPageLocation policy

Chrome has an official policy for this, NewTabPageLocation, which sets the new tab address and stops users changing it. Google limits where it applies. On Windows it only works on computers joined to an Active Directory or Azure AD domain or enrolled in Chrome Enterprise Core, and on a Mac only on managed computers (MDM, MCX or Chrome Enterprise Core). That’s why the registry tip you may have seen does nothing on a home PC.

Linux has no such limit. Create a policy file, restart Chrome, and check chrome://policy:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed
echo '{"NewTabPageLocation": "https://example.com"}' | sudo tee /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/newtab.json

Any policy makes Chrome show “Managed by your organization” at the bottom of its menu. That’s expected.

Where Stackboard fits

Stackboard can’t open a website of your choice. It replaces the new tab with a board of your own bookmarks, grouped into spaces and stacks. If what you wanted from a custom URL was fast access to a handful of sites, that puts all of them one click away. If you want one specific website on every new tab, a redirect extension is the right tool.