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Similar to the problem with the "search tabs" bar, go to chrome://flags/#chrome-refresh-2023-ntb and disable " **Chrome Refresh 2023 Top Chrome Font Style** "
Edit: With the newest update, you'll also have to disable
"**chrome://flags/#customize-chrome-side-panel**"
I just love when I google a google problem and the first result points me to a concise Reddit post and the first answer is the solution. Google rocks and sucks at the same time on so many levels. Thank you for the solution! :)
I wasn't sure how to "describe" this problem for google to find something relevant, but then I found this title which perfectly captures the issue. love it haha
Thank you so much for the heads up in regard to the additional setting.
My bookmarks reverted back to the terrible new layout this morning but the additional setting has got it back to normal again.
Thanks for the update, now we just need a solution for the new UI when these options no longer work. [https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/1bmq5aq/new\_ui\_is\_awful\_and\_flag\_disable\_no\_longer\_works/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/1bmq5aq/new_ui_is_awful_and_flag_disable_no_longer_works/)
They've done it again.
I don't understand who makes the decisions to deliberately inconvenience many users. I get the change, but why repeatedly revert our option to opt out?
Why does every UI refresh for everything always seem to add 300% more white space? Do they think everyone is setting their monitors into vertical mode? This trend in UI design just drives me bonkers.
This is great but I really loved the blank folders, is there anyway to just do the spacing only? While I'm asking does anyone know a way to lengthen the saved groups portion on the left of the bookmarks bar as it only shows four of my tab groups and yeah, I'm a power browser so I have a few. lol
Same.
Stupid tab search arrow is back, and the bookmarks bar / folder text is HUGE.
Why do they think people want this?
Make ALL of it optional... this is killing productivity, at minimum.
So I never noticed this before, but when you go to chrome://flags, these are all experimental. The customize-chrome-side-panel flag is no longer available, so I can only guess that this is no longer experimental and is now an actual feature.
It can still be disabled, but now you have to add a command line switch to the end of your shortcut's command line.
1. Right-click your Chrome shortcut and select Properties
2. In the Shortcut tab, edit the Target line so it looks like the following: "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --disable-features=CustomizeChromeSidePanel
3. Click OK to save
4. If Chrome is already open, close and re-launch.
This fixed it for me. I also noticed that once I did this, the text in Chrome was fuzzy. I re-enabled the flags I had previously disabled, which fixed that as well.
Hope this helps everyone!
Thank you! The latest update (May 2024) had me scuppered for a while trying to work out how to get rid of the nasty big menu fonts, but this fix worked for me.
You just saved me from finally pulling the trigger and moving to Firefox or some other browser (which comes with other challenges that I am just not interested to take on at the moment during my workday.). I guess the boat floats on until they finally butcher the Chrome UI for good.
For the love of god, I DO NOT understand who are these UI engineers behind this awful UI change. They seem hellbent on increasing the font in the Bookmarks bar folders to a point where i cannot read more than 3 words. The rest of the space is filled with Whitespace (which is somehow a thing?). For F\*\*K's sake, stop messing with the browser, its just a damn tool. Not everything needs a UI overhaul after every couple months, and even if it does, i expect an adult to do the job and not 1 year old's who seem to have the reins as the moment.
Okay, rant over. I feel better now. To anyone reading, I hope you have a good day.
Do you have any more ideas. I'm having this same issue and have read multiple ways and disabling in flags. I can get the side panel to disappear but nothing changes with disabling lots of options in flags that I've gotten from the thread and others. Any ideas?
This is driving me insane!
Disable this one for the Bookmarks bar only:
#chrome-refresh-2023-top-chrome-font
Disable this one for the Bookmarks bar AND all the bookmarks folders inside:
#customize-chrome-side-panel
This one will break the side panel somehow, as I see it with a red background, but I don't use it anyway.
Go to appearance on your settings and change the font size to small. Seemed to do the trick for me. However I do hate this new bloated layout and hope it can be reverted somehow.
Are you talking about how the text shows up on a page? I think OP is talking about how they spaced out the bookmarks & bookmark bar icons for no good reason, messing up everyone's perfectly-configured bookmarks bar. This is like the third time in as many weeks that I've had to search for how to get my bookmarks bar spacing back to "normal."
No cure seems to work on mine, to mend what google have broken in Dec '23 update. \* I found this, which maybe useful to someone out there? \~ Tho' alas not for me. WAAAAHHH :(
[https://www.pcworld.com/article/457460/how-to-decrease-the-spacing-in-chromes-bookmark-lists.html](https://www.pcworld.com/article/457460/how-to-decrease-the-spacing-in-chromes-bookmark-lists.html)
Exact steps are go to
Chrome Search paste chrome://flags/
Type chrome refresh 2023 and disable
Then re-launch chrome and bookmarks font will back to old style!
Do you have any more ideas. I'm having this same issue and have read multiple ways and disabling in flags. I can get the side panel to disappear but nothing changes with disabling lots of options in flags that I've gotten from the thread and others. Any idea?
Thank you for your submission to /r/Chrome! We hope you'll find the help you need. Once you've found a solution to your issue, please comment "**!solved**" under this comment to mark the post as solved. Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/chrome) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Similar to the problem with the "search tabs" bar, go to chrome://flags/#chrome-refresh-2023-ntb and disable " **Chrome Refresh 2023 Top Chrome Font Style** " Edit: With the newest update, you'll also have to disable "**chrome://flags/#customize-chrome-side-panel**"
I just love when I google a google problem and the first result points me to a concise Reddit post and the first answer is the solution. Google rocks and sucks at the same time on so many levels. Thank you for the solution! :)
I wasn't sure how to "describe" this problem for google to find something relevant, but then I found this title which perfectly captures the issue. love it haha
Thank you so much for the heads up in regard to the additional setting. My bookmarks reverted back to the terrible new layout this morning but the additional setting has got it back to normal again.
jeezz... they are not going to let it go, are they. Then add option in setting, not force users to look at this rounded bold crap! aaaaaagrrrrrr!!!
Yep. What do we have to disable now? I looked back and I disabled the 2023 font style last year, but it reverted last night and won't change now.
Someone posted 4 hours ago to disable "Customize chrome side panel". That worked for me. Hope it helps someone else looking in here.
Thank you!
Legend!
You are my hero!
And U just saved me once again \^\^ thx
I can breathe again ♥
You rock, thank you my hero
Thanks for the update, now we just need a solution for the new UI when these options no longer work. [https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/1bmq5aq/new\_ui\_is\_awful\_and\_flag\_disable\_no\_longer\_works/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/1bmq5aq/new_ui_is_awful_and_flag_disable_no_longer_works/)
Thanks for coming back for the update fix!
It worked, Great !!!
thank you so much dude
bless u bru
They've done it again. I don't understand who makes the decisions to deliberately inconvenience many users. I get the change, but why repeatedly revert our option to opt out?
This worked perfectly. Thank you! See you next week when they eff it up again lol. Damn I hate Google.
You're a saint; thank you so much for this! I found it so frustrating that everything was unnecessarily in bold now, and this fixed it beautifully.
With over 17000 bookmarks this tip really really helped me out. Thank you!
You rock! Thanks for posting this and providing a quick fix.
Thanks! And for everyone else this helped, please upvote!
Thank you. You are wonderful.
If I set it to anything but default it seems to fix it.
thanks for this perfectly snappy solution
Thank you so much! This was the solution I was searching for. Helped me a lot!
thank you
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Thanks, rarely have seen such a quick fix
thank you for this. much appreciated.
Why does every UI refresh for everything always seem to add 300% more white space? Do they think everyone is setting their monitors into vertical mode? This trend in UI design just drives me bonkers.
I dont know. Maybe they think we are blind and need bigger fonts ? :D
This is great but I really loved the blank folders, is there anyway to just do the spacing only? While I'm asking does anyone know a way to lengthen the saved groups portion on the left of the bookmarks bar as it only shows four of my tab groups and yeah, I'm a power browser so I have a few. lol
The recommendations listed here - which worked previously - no longer work on the newest Chrome update I received this morning.
Same. Stupid tab search arrow is back, and the bookmarks bar / folder text is HUGE. Why do they think people want this? Make ALL of it optional... this is killing productivity, at minimum.
Really hoping someone figures this new twist out... soo annoying
So I never noticed this before, but when you go to chrome://flags, these are all experimental. The customize-chrome-side-panel flag is no longer available, so I can only guess that this is no longer experimental and is now an actual feature. It can still be disabled, but now you have to add a command line switch to the end of your shortcut's command line. 1. Right-click your Chrome shortcut and select Properties 2. In the Shortcut tab, edit the Target line so it looks like the following: "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --disable-features=CustomizeChromeSidePanel 3. Click OK to save 4. If Chrome is already open, close and re-launch. This fixed it for me. I also noticed that once I did this, the text in Chrome was fuzzy. I re-enabled the flags I had previously disabled, which fixed that as well. Hope this helps everyone!
This worked for me. I pasted the --disable-features=CustomizeChromeSidePanel as outlined in bullet point #2. Thanks very much.
Thank you! I was going bonkers that nothing was working! I'm not super tech savvy, so I appreciate the clear instructions. :)
Thank you! The latest update (May 2024) had me scuppered for a while trying to work out how to get rid of the nasty big menu fonts, but this fix worked for me.
You just saved me from finally pulling the trigger and moving to Firefox or some other browser (which comes with other challenges that I am just not interested to take on at the moment during my workday.). I guess the boat floats on until they finally butcher the Chrome UI for good. For the love of god, I DO NOT understand who are these UI engineers behind this awful UI change. They seem hellbent on increasing the font in the Bookmarks bar folders to a point where i cannot read more than 3 words. The rest of the space is filled with Whitespace (which is somehow a thing?). For F\*\*K's sake, stop messing with the browser, its just a damn tool. Not everything needs a UI overhaul after every couple months, and even if it does, i expect an adult to do the job and not 1 year old's who seem to have the reins as the moment. Okay, rant over. I feel better now. To anyone reading, I hope you have a good day.
This worked for me just 11 days ago and isn't now. Why do they keep DOING this?
Now we get to wait for them to take the option of disabling it away from us... Like the download bar at the bottom.
Do you have any more ideas. I'm having this same issue and have read multiple ways and disabling in flags. I can get the side panel to disappear but nothing changes with disabling lots of options in flags that I've gotten from the thread and others. Any ideas? This is driving me insane!
Disable this one for the Bookmarks bar only: #chrome-refresh-2023-top-chrome-font Disable this one for the Bookmarks bar AND all the bookmarks folders inside: #customize-chrome-side-panel This one will break the side panel somehow, as I see it with a red background, but I don't use it anyway.
Thanks, this worked for me.
Sigh, today's update did the same and now neither of these work. You happen to find any new thing to disable?
Go to appearance on your settings and change the font size to small. Seemed to do the trick for me. However I do hate this new bloated layout and hope it can be reverted somehow.
Are you talking about how the text shows up on a page? I think OP is talking about how they spaced out the bookmarks & bookmark bar icons for no good reason, messing up everyone's perfectly-configured bookmarks bar. This is like the third time in as many weeks that I've had to search for how to get my bookmarks bar spacing back to "normal."
This only changes the font size of the page itself. Not the text within Chrome browser.
No cure seems to work on mine, to mend what google have broken in Dec '23 update. \* I found this, which maybe useful to someone out there? \~ Tho' alas not for me. WAAAAHHH :( [https://www.pcworld.com/article/457460/how-to-decrease-the-spacing-in-chromes-bookmark-lists.html](https://www.pcworld.com/article/457460/how-to-decrease-the-spacing-in-chromes-bookmark-lists.html)
Exact steps are go to Chrome Search paste chrome://flags/ Type chrome refresh 2023 and disable Then re-launch chrome and bookmarks font will back to old style!
Do you have any more ideas. I'm having this same issue and have read multiple ways and disabling in flags. I can get the side panel to disappear but nothing changes with disabling lots of options in flags that I've gotten from the thread and others. Any idea?
Sorry just now seeing this... Try this Go to: chrome://flags/ Then Disable: Chrome WebUI Refresh 2023 Then Disable: Customize Chrome Side Panel
Oh, you are gold !
[New fix](https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/1c5zvnx/comment/l6hqf7g/): add following parameter to chrome app link: `--disable-features=CustomizeChromeSidePanel` https://preview.redd.it/k47wrqulfe5d1.png?width=1101&format=png&auto=webp&s=ded06046b9dc4d3f47e4aa983a9fd713b1a25adb