How to show the bookmarks bar in Chrome (and get it back when it goes missing)

Updated 18 October 2026

Press Ctrl+Shift+B (Cmd+Shift+B on a Mac) to show or hide the bookmarks bar. You can also open the three-dot menu and choose Bookmarks and lists › Show bookmarks bar.

Three ways to turn the bookmarks bar on

1. Keyboard: Ctrl+Shift+B on Windows, Linux and ChromeOS, or Cmd+Shift+B on a Mac. The same keys hide it again.
2. Menu: click the three-dot menu at the top right, then Bookmarks and lists › Show bookmarks bar. If the item says Hide bookmarks bar, the bar is already on. In Chrome 156 and later the item is a submenu: Show bookmark bar › Always show. On a Mac, the menu bar at the top of the screen also has View › Always Show Bookmarks Bar.
3. Settings: go to chrome://settings/appearance and turn on Show bookmarks bar (a Bookmarks bar drop-down in Chrome 156 and later).

The bar shows whatever is in your Bookmarks bar folder, in a single row under the address bar. Anything that doesn’t fit moves into the » button near the right end, whose tooltip says Hidden bookmarks.

Chrome 156 and later: three choices

Chrome 156, which starts rolling out on 20 October 2026, turns the on/off item into a small submenu. Open the three-dot menu, then Bookmarks and lists › Show bookmark bar, and pick one:

• Always show: the bar sits under the address bar on every page.
• Only show on New Tab Page: the bar appears on new tabs and stays out of the way on websites.
• Always hide: the bar never appears, new tabs included.

The same three options are under Bookmarks bar in chrome://settings/appearance, and in the menu you get by right-clicking the bar. The shortcut Ctrl+Shift+B now switches between Always show and Always hide, so hiding the bar that way also takes it off your new tabs.

Chrome 156 can also hide the bar by itself. If you never picked one of the three options and never click anything on the bar, Chrome eventually removes it from new tabs (the default in Chrome’s code is after it has shown, unused, on more than 15 separate days). A message says “Your bookmarks bar was hidden because you haven’t used it recently” and offers Undo. Clicking a bookmark on the bar, or choosing any of the options yourself, keeps this from happening.

Show the bar only on the New Tab page

In Chrome 155 and earlier, hide the bar with Ctrl+Shift+B and Chrome keeps showing it on the New Tab page, as long as you have at least one bookmark. In Chrome 156 and later, choose Only show on New Tab Page.

This works on Chrome’s own New Tab page, including the plainer version Chrome shows when your default search engine isn’t Google (chrome://new-tab-page-third-party). For more than one row of bookmarks on a new tab, see how to show bookmarks on the Chrome new tab page.

Bookmarks bar missing? Check these

What else lives on the bar

Three kinds of buttons on the bar aren’t your own bookmarks. To switch one off, right-click an empty part of the bar; in Chrome 156 and later the switches sit in that menu’s Show bookmark bar submenu.

• Tab groups: buttons for your saved tab groups. Untick Show tab groups, or turn off Show tab groups in bookmarks bar in chrome://settings/appearance.
• Apps: an Apps button, controlled by Show apps shortcut.
• Managed bookmarks: a folder your organization adds. You can hide it with Show managed bookmarks, but you can’t edit it.

On a phone or tablet

Chrome on Android tablets has a bookmarks bar: tap the three-dot menu › Settings › Appearance and turn on Show bookmarks bar, or press Ctrl+Shift+B on a keyboard. Google notes that it stays hidden in small windows. On an Android phone, iPhone or iPad, open your bookmarks from the three-dot menu › Bookmarks.

In other browsers

The bar has other names elsewhere: the Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox, the favorites bar in Edge and the Favorites bar in Safari. Brave and Opera call it the bookmarks bar, as Chrome does: see Brave and Opera.