How to Enable the Home Tab on Google Chrome

If you have a closer look at Google Chrome, you will notice how precise and organized it is. It has all the basic tabs you need, all sorted the way anyone would like it. And because the developers want to keep things not too cluttered, they have also kept the home button as an optional icon which can be enabled by the user themselves.

The Purpose of a Home Tab

A home tab, which literally is the shape of a house is a tab used to go back to the original page or a new tab as per the requirements of the user. For instance, if you have opened many windows on Google Chrome, and now want to open a new tab, or want to go to your home page ( which could be any webpage defined by you), all you have to do is click on this home tab. This will either open a new window for you or will open the website which you have saved information for in the customized home page.

This home tab is disabled by default when you open Google Chrome. To make this tab active you will have to follow the steps as mentioned below.

1. Originally, this is how your Google Chrome window looks like when you open the browser. To enable the Home Tab for Google Chrome, click on the three dots (vertical ellipses) that are present on the right top corner of your browser.

   

   

2. Once you have clicked on these vertical dots, a dropdown list of options will appear on the screen. Locate the tab for ‘Settings’ on this list, which is the third last option as shown in the image below.

   

3. Clicking on settings will lead you to all the settings for your Google Chrome and related actions. If you scroll down on the same screen, you will find a heading for Appearance.

   

   

4. Under the heading for Appearance, there will be an option for ‘Show Home Tab’, which is currently disabled because of the default settings. To enable this tab, and to make it show on the browser every time you open your Google Chrome, you have to slide the button for this tab on. Right opposite ‘Show Home Tab’ is a slider button switch for disabling and enabling the Home tab. Right now, since it is disabled, the color of the tab is white and grey. When you slide it to the right, the color will shift to white and blue.

   

   

5. Once the tab has been enabled, it will show on the top toolbar of Google Chrome. But before that, you need to select either of the two options that appear right under the Show Home Tab option. These options basically represent what function is expected out of the home tab. The home tab can either open up a new tab for you once you click on it or, it can open the webpage of your choice, which is a link you will enter in the space for the second option that says ‘Enter custom web address. Both the options cannot be selected at one time, so you will have to choose between the two.
6. The home tab will show on the left side of the search bar for Google Chrome as shown in the image below. Any time of your time online, clicking on this icon will lead you to a new tab or to the web address that you can enter in place for the second options under the settings for Show Home tab.

   

7. I added the link to my Gmail account just for an experiment to see how this works.

   

8. I clicked on the Home tab once, and it led me to my Gmail account. Note: If you are signed out of your account, then you will be directed to Gmails home page and not the signed-in version.