How to hide the tab bar in Google Chrome

Question

I'd like to hide the tab bar when there's only one tab opening. Because I open 4 windows so 4 tab bar actually takes quite a lot screen real estate.

I use Google Chrome the Linux version.

Solution 1

Here's a piece of javascript you can put into your browser's omnibox or into a bookmark:

javascript:window.open(location.href, "detab", "toolbar=0"); window.close()

This will open a new window with your current page without tabs and close the current page.

Solution 2

To make the javascript snippet from @drnessie's answer easily accessible, do the following:

1. right-click on the omnibar and select "Edit Search Engines"
2. Add a new entry under "Other Search Engines" with the following fields:
   • Name: Hide tab bar
   • Keyword: ht
   • URL: javascript:window.open(location.href, "detab", "toolbar=0"); window.close()
3. To open the current tab in a new window without tab bar simply hit Ctrl-L to focus the ominbar, type ht and hit Return

Comments

[John in Ohio]

Works for me in Fedora 17.

[Frank]

+1 Thanks! I'm surprised no one has upvoted this yet.

[Joe Hansen]

For this to work for me (window is not closing but other window is opening) on Chrome 42 on OS X 10.11, I need to make sure "javascript:" is on the front and "window.close()" has a trailing semicolon.

[Joe Hansen]

For this to work for me (window is not closing but other window is opening) on Chrome 42 on OS X 10.11, I need to make sure "javascript:" is on the front and "window.close()" has a trailing semicolon.

[Joe Hansen]

Actually, now I can't get this search engine hack to work. No matter the differences I mentioned in my last comment, I cannot get the original tab to close after opening the new window.

[orangensaft]

F11 is the fullscreen key on Linux, but the question asks how to hide the tab bar on four windows - fullscreening one window, while hiding its tab bar, will hide the other three windows.

[orangensaft]

window.close() doesn't work on Chromium 97. It fails with the error message: Scripts may close only the windows that were opened by them. You can still use the first command to open a new window without tab bar and then close the old one manually.

[daslicious]

on Ubuntu you get the system bar, so you don't gain any space