If you use Google Chrome often, you will likely have a few (or many) extensions installed. While these extensions can greatly help you perform specific tasks, they can also slow down the browser and drain your laptop battery. Here are some ways to disable those Chrome extensions when you have no need of them.
Disable Chrome Extensions Using Chrome Flags
The easiest way to disable your Chrome extensions is through the browser’s built-in flags. These are optional settings which you can toggle to enable some of your browser’s experimental features.
Start by opening a new Chrome window, then type chrome://flags on the browser’s address bar.
Select the Search flags text box on the page’s top bar, then type “Extensions Menu Access Control.”
Click the Default dropdown box on the flag’s right-hand side, then set its value to Enable.
Click Relaunch on the bottom message box to apply your new Chrome flag.
Once Chrome is back up and running, open a new tab and navigate to a webpage.
Click the Puzzle Icon on your browser’s upper right corner.
This will bring up a small popup menu where Chrome will list your extensions along with a switch to disable them individually. Since I want to disable everything for this website, I will toggle the switch on the popup menu’s upper right corner.
Note: this Chrome flag will only disable your extensions for the website that you’re currently in.
Click Reload on the popup menu to fully disable your extensions on the current website.
Good to know: learn how to quickly access your extensions by creating custom hotkeys in Chrome.
Disable Chrome Extensions Using Extensity
Another way to quickly disable your Chrome extensions is to use the Extensity extension manager. Unlike the experimental flag, this add-on allows you to turn off extensions for your entire session and introduces features such as group extension lists and syncing.
Note: Extensity will work with both Chrome Extensions and Apps. However, Apps are now only available for Chromebooks.
To start using this convenient extension manager, visit the Chrome Web Store and download Extensity.
After downloading, click the Puzzle Icon in the upper right corner of your browser, then select “Extensity” from the popup list.
Note: you can also click the Pin Icon beside the Extensity extension to place it in your browser’s add-on bar.
Find the extension that you want to disable and click it. In my case, I disabled my Vimium extension.
You can re-enable any of your disabled extensions by clicking your greyed out extension and reloading the current webpage.
Similar to the Chrome flag, you can also disable all of your extensions through Extensity. To do that, click the toggle switch on the pop-up menu’s top bar.
The pop-up menu also provides a shortcut to Chrome’s extension manager. For that, click the smaller Puzzle Icon on Extensity’s top bar to open the default manager in a new tab. This option is handy, especially if you want to delete an extension or allow it in Incognito mode – something which you can’t do with Extensity.
In addition to this shortcut, the Gear Icon leads to Extensity’s own options. The first section shows all the tweaks that you can do to your Extensity install, while the second allows you to create custom extension profiles for your browser.
Creating an Extension Profile using Extensity
One of the unique selling points of Extensity is that it can create custom profiles for your extensions. This allows you to manage groups of add-ons, which you can quickly toggle for certain situations. For instance, you can bundle your social media extensions and disable them when you’re not on a social media website.
To create a new profile, open the Extensity pop up menu, then click the Profile Icon on the extension’s top bar.
Click the textbox with the label “New Profile Name,” provide a name for your profile, then click the Plus (+) button.
This will bring up a checkbox list of your current extensions. Tick the boxes of the add-ons that you want to include in your custom profile. In my case, I want to create a group for my Bitwarden and Vimium extensions.
Click Save to commit your changes and create your new extensions profile.
Navigate to a website, then select your new extension profile from Extensity’s pop-up menu.
Reload your current tab to apply your new extension group to your webpage.
I’ve been constantly looking for an easier and more appealing way to enable and disable Chrome extensions for a while now, and there did not seem to be a simple enough solution — until this extension. Now, I can simply click on an icon and view all extensions that I have installed, what’s enabled and disabled without having to open a new tab.
Tip: are you having trouble with removing a faulty add-on? Learn some of the best ways to uninstall a stubborn Chrome extension.
Disable Chrome Extensions using Command Line Options
Aside from using Chrome flags and add-ons, it’s also possible to disable your extensions through the --disable-extensions command line option. This setting forces Chrome to run without loading any of its extensions, which is particularly useful for troubleshooting extension-related issues that prevent Chrome from starting up.
Before you start, make sure that you’ve closed all the currently active Chrome browser windows on your machine.
To use the --disable-extensions option in Windows, first create a desktop shortcut for your Chrome install.
Right-click your mouse on the desktop shortcut, and select Properties from the context menu. This will load a small window where the system will print the details about your shortcut.
Select the text box beside the Target label, scroll to the end of its value, then append --disable-extensions after the closing quote mark (“).
Click OK, then Continue to apply your new command line option, then open Chrome using your shortcut.
You can use the same command line option to disable your Chrome extensions in macOS. For that, open a new Terminal window, then run the following line of code:
/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --disable-extensions
Lastly, this also works for both the Chromium and Google Chrome packages in Linux. For instance, you can run the following command to start Chrome without any extensions in Ubuntu:
google-chrome --disable-extensions
Exploring the various methods for disabling your Chrome extensions is just the first step in navigating this diverse world of browser add-ons. Learn how you can improve your web browsing experience by looking at some of the best Chrome extensions for automating browser tasks.
Image credit: Thought Catalog via Unsplash. All alterations and screenshots by Ramces Red.
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