The idea behind Google Search suggestions is to make things easier. Google is all about predicting what you need, but even all that data and advanced algorithms can get things wrong. Luckily, you can easily remove Google Search suggestions on all platforms, and we explain how below.
Table of contents:
- Disable Google Search suggestions in Chrome and Google app for Android
- Disable Google Search suggestions in Safari for iOS
- Turn off Google Search suggestions in Chrome on desktop
How to turn off Google Search suggestions on Android, iOS, and PCs
1. Disable Google Search suggestions in Chrome and Google app for Android
No platform will “encourage” you to default to Google’s services as much as Android. Nothing that’s out of order considering Google’s involvement with Android OS. We can’t dismiss the fact that Google is, after all, an ad-focused company. So, many users prefer suggestions to stick to local history and bookmarks instead of allowing Google to autocomplete search queries based on trends. The things like persistent ads in Google Discovery or Google Assistant popping up can be annoying, but that’s a part of the deal.
So, unless you decide to switch to an alternative browser and use an alternative search engine (like DuckDuckGo or Yahoo, for example), you are probably using Google Chrome and the Google app to search the interweb. Or Google Assistant that can be annoying
If you dislike the Google Search suggestions in Google Chrome for Android, here’s how to disable them:
- Open Google Chrome.
- Tap on the 3-dots menu at the top right corner and open Settings.
- Open Google services.
- Disable the Autocomplete searches and URLs option.
And this is how to disable suggestions and Popular results in the Google app:
- Open the Google app.
- Tap on your Profile/Account image at the top right corner.
- Tap Settings.
- Open Personal Results and disable the Show personal results option.
- Get back and open General.
- Disable Recent pages and Autocomplete with the trending searches option.
- Now, open Autocomplete with on-device data and uncheck all boxes.
2. Remove Google Search suggestions in Safari on iOS
The procedure is the same if you want to disable Google Search results in Chrome and the Google app for iOS. There are some minor changes but, following the Android steps, you should have an easy time.
To turn off Google Search suggestions in Safari is a bit different than in Chrome. Here’s what you need to do if Google is your default search engine in Safari:
- Open Settings.
- Open Safari.
- Disable Search Engine Suggestions and, optionally, disable Safari Suggestions.
- After that, open Safari and then Google.com.
- Tap on the hamburger menu (3 vertical lines in the top left corner) and open Settings.
- Swipe down and switch from Show popular searches to Do not Show popular searches.
- Tap Save at the bottom.
3. Remove Google Search suggestions in Chrome on desktop
Disabling suggestions in Chrome on the desktop is essentially the same as doing it on Chrome for Android or iOS. You just need to go to Settings and disable the Autocomplete searches and URLs in the Google Services settings.
Here’s how to turn off suggestions in Chrome on a desktop:
- Open Chrome.
- Click on the 3-dots menu in the top right corner.
- Click on Sync and Google services.
- Disable the Autocomplete searches and URLs option.
- If you still see results, press Ctrl + Shift + Delete and delete all browsing data.
You can also disable popular searches in Google Search Settings (from google.com), as explained in the Safari step.
For the History and Bookmarks-based suggestions, you can’t do much. Some extensions will block Omnibox (Address bar) from showing results, but you can always clear your browsing history regularly without the need to worry about these.
With that said, we can conclude this article. Thank you for reading and don’t forget to share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
Editor’s note: This article was initially published in February 2022. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.
