On your computer, open Chrome. At the top right, click More Settings. Under 'Search engine,' next to 'Search engine used in the address bar,' click the Down arrow. Select a new default search engine. If you've tried to set your search engine but it doesn't work, you may have malware. Get help restoring your Chrome settings. Download Chrome for Mac For Mac OS X 10.10 or later. This computer will no longer receive Google Chrome updates because Mac OS X 10.6 - 10.9 are no longer supported.

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In the early days of Mac, its default web browser wasn’t what you might expect. Surprisingly for all, Microsoft had struck a deal with Apple to ship Macs with Internet Explorer right out of the box. However, once the contract was done, Apple quickly released their own browser called Safari.

Unfortunately for Apple’s new browser, a stronger alternative under the name of Google Chrome browser had already snapped up the market share. Mac users were attracted to Google due to its search and mail services — roughly one third of all Macs use Chrome as their default browser as of 2019. With only a few options competing for the same market, the name of the game has become cross-platform.

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Getting Started With Chrome On Mac

Web browsers have come a long way in recent years, with most reaching some sort of feature parity and common user experience, which makes switching between them fairly easy. Chrome browser for Mac is no exception, but the sheer number of users have led to it having an interesting advantage in the marketplace — mostly due to Chrome’s presence on any device, from iPhones to Windows desktops. If you’ve been considering a switch and are wondering how to install Chrome on Mac, your best guide is below.

The benefits of Google Chrome for Mac

There are good reasons for Mac users to prefer Chrome, especially with its natural overlap with other Google products. Users, for example, can sign into their Google Account on Chrome and have it synchronize with their other devices, integrating account data and preferences accordingly. More reasons to make the switch to Chrome include:

• Web developer tools make it easy to test web apps on Chrome, which means strong compatibility with the latest sites and tech standards

• Support by nearly every device and operating system, including Windows and Apple products, whereas Safari is only available in iOS and macOS

• An impressive library of browser extensions, which grant additional capabilities, such as ad-blocking and custom integrations. It’s true that most other browsers also use extensions, but the wider support for Chrome means more developers can get the best bang for their buck by releasing their products on Chrome first.

Truth be told, Chrome isn’t without its downsides. A common complaint one might hear is that Google Chrome for Mac uses a lot of system memory (and therefore laptop battery), especially when lots of tabs are open and running.

One might argue it’s because Chrome has some of the best security and malware protection, which inherently uses more RAM and battery to accommodate its scans — but whatever the reason, it’s not impossible to mitigate — just use Endurance.

Endurance is a lightweight utility that helps you take back the control of your battery life, sometimes extending it by up to 20%. In just a few clicks, Endurance will lower your processor speed, hide background apps, and dim the screen to preserve battery when you don’t need to be using it in full brightness — perfect for when you’re in and out of Google Chrome.

How to download and install Chrome for Mac

Not sure how to install Google Chrome for Mac? It’s all very simple, but you’ll need to use a different web browser (like Safari) to download Chrome for Mac first:

1. Open Safari (or other web browser) then navigate to google.com/chrome

2. Hit Download Chrome for Mac

3. A new window will appear asking you to agree to the Terms of Use. If you agree, click on Accept and Install.

4. When the Chrome for Mac download is finished, open the file called googlechrome.dmg and go through the installation process

5. Drag the Chrome icon to the Applications folder when asked — the last step before you finally have Chrome on Mac

6. Launch Google Chrome from Applications or straight from your Dock

7. Remove the Google Chrome download for Mac from the Downloads folder by dragging it to the Trash

Now that you know how to download Google Chrome, you might want to make Chrome default browser on Mac. To do this, simply open it and click the three dots in the top-right corner, followed by Settings, then in the Default Browser section click Make Default.

If you’re wondering how to update Google Chrome on Mac, you don’t have to — Chrome will do this automatically the next time you launch the browser, so you never have to worry about having to look for the latest version.

Making the best use of Google Chrome

Chrome is already a fast web browser, but it can be even faster if you take full advantage of its keyboard shortcuts. From how to search a page on Mac through to opening and closing tabs, here are a few to help you become more productive:

• Open a private window for browsing (called Incognito mode) with ⌘ + Shift + N

• Open a new tab in a snap using ⌘ + T

• Close that same tab by hitting ⌘ + W

• Jump to specific tabs holding Command and selecting a number (e.g. 1, 2, or 9). This shortcut will take you directly to the tab number reading from left to right.

• Zoom in and out with ⌘ and tapping the + or - keys

• Looking for how to search a page on Mac? You can press ⌘ + L to go to Chrome’s URL bar, which also doubles as the Google search engine — this makes searching for new pages and websites easier, as you no longer have to navigate to google.com first.

• Need to know how to search for a word on a web page in Chrome for Mac? Try ⌘ + F.

Those are just a few of the built-in shortcuts on Chrome, but there may be times when you need more — such as a quick and easy way to take and store screenshots of your web pages. That’s where Inboard comes in handy.

Capture webpages with Inboard

Get Inboard, an app that enables you to quickly take a screenshot of any part of a webpage as well as organizes screenshots for you.

Inboard is an app that lets you quickly take a screenshot of the full page or just a specific part, then save it to a moodboard among your other favorite images for inspiration. It’s like Pinterest but on your desktop, and it can even hook into your Dribble account to measure likes.

To take screenshots with Inboard:

1. Go to the app’s icon in menu bar and select Capture Screenshot or Capture Web Page

2. For webpages, Inboard will ask you to install a browser extension

3. Once you have the extension, simply click it on any website to produce a full screenshot

Another tip for making the most out of Chrome is managing your privacy and security better — using a password manager.

Secrets is an app that manages all of your passwords in one place. Using industry-standard PGP encryption, you can store, view, and update all of your passwords without worrying about being hacked or compromised. It syncs with all of your devices, and even manages credit card and other information — without handing it all over to Google.

Now that you know how to download Chrome on Mac and some of the reasons it’s so popular — you’re ready to go. To really make the most out of Chrome though, you’ll want to explore Endurance, Inboard, and Secrets. Best of all, you can do so for free with a 7-day trial on Setapp, a subscription service for Mac that has over 150 exceptionally useful apps to enrich your digital life.

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

Chrome For Macbook

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Google Chrome is the king of web browsers but if you’re here it’s probably because the king has gone a bit insane. Is Chrome running slow, crashing, freezing, or not even loading? Are web pages not loading anymore? Is your browser experience getting slower every day?

If you’re experiencing any of those Chrome problems, you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to show you how to troubleshoot and resolve common Chrome problems that make you feel like Google hates Macs.

Some fixes will be easier than others but none require advanced knowledge.

If you’re ready to fix Chrome, let’s begin!

Is it your Mac or Chrome that is slow?

Chrome isn’t an independent entity, it’s a part of a whole Mac system. So before you deal with Chrome, make sure the problem isn’t in your macOS. A quick example — the outdated system caches causing your Chrome plugins to crash. Or is your Mac gasping for free space?

A clever path is to give your macOS a good cleanup, first. We like CleanMyMac X app for this purpose as it finds and cleans all redundant & conflicting files across all your folders. So, take 2 minutes to tidy up your Mac with CleanMyMac X, and let’s move further.

CleanMyMac is available for a free download here — this app is notarized by Apple, so no worries.

Common Chrome problems on Mac (and their fixes)

Mac battery draining fast

Chrome is known for its fast performance, which it gets by using your Mac’s CPU more than other browsers. But more CPU usage means more battery drain. If you use your laptop on the go, this can become a huge issue. What good is performance if your battery is completely drained and you can’t turn on your Mac?

If Mac battery life is important to you, then there’s a simple trick that should be a big help. Often there is a tab or an extension that is hogging your resources and burning through your battery life by itself.

Follow these steps to find the offending site or extension:

1. Open Chrome and choose Window in the top menu.
2. Click on Task Manager.
3. In Task Manager, click the Memory Footprint column to sort them.

Now you can determine what sites and extensions use up the most memory in Chrome. You can still visit one of these sites but maybe don’t leave it open in a tab anymore. Also, remember that even sites that aren’t memory hogs can still be a battery drain if you have a lot of tabs open.

Close resource-hungry and unnecessary tabs and the time you get from a battery charge should start to improve.

Chrome is running slow

Does Chrome on your Mac feel like browsing through a swamp? If browser responsiveness is slowing, it’s time to drain the swamp.

Why is Google Chrome so slow? We mentioned earlier that Chrome is resource-heavy, especially on your CPU. Chrome is fast when your Mac has the resources available, but when they are limited, and Chrome is demanding more than your Mac can give – swamp time.

The tip from the previous section will help a lot, but if you’re still experiencing slowness, there are other fixes you can turn to.

Let’s start by focusing on the cache. Chrome loves storing lots of your web browsing data. At first, it can help speed things along, but soon Chrome’s pockets are being weighed down by cache, particularly if your Mac is low on space or memory.

To manually delete your Chrome cache on Mac:

1. Open Chrome and choose Chrome in the top menu.
2. Select Clear Browsing Data.
3. Check the history, cache, cookies, and other types of browser data that you want to delete.
4. Click 'Clear data.'

Again, there’s another method for clearing out your cache, cookies, browser history, autofill form data, and a whole lot more. You can use the free version of CleanMyMac X. There’s surely no easier way to manage not just the cache that’s slowing down Chrome, but also your privacy and security — if these things are important to you (they should be).

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To delete Chrome cache and other browsing data with CleanMyMac X:

1. Download the free edition of CleanMyMac X and launch the app.
2. Go to the Privacy tab and select Chrome.
3. Select what you want to clean.

Or you can even use CleanMyMac X’s System Junk cleanup tool that not only removes Chrome cache files but also gets rid of “temporary” files that clog up your system. So, hopefully, your browser will get a bit snappier.

Сhrome using significant energy on Mac

“Chrome using significant energy” may be a sign of general memory overload on your computer. Try opening your Activity Monitor and check off a few memory consumers.

1. Open the Launchpad and type in Activity Monitor in the search bar.
2. Now, sort by Energy and use the [x] button to quit a process.

Disable background synchronization

There’s another setting that may help you out. Sadly, it’s buried too deep in Chrome’s Preferences but according to many users, it should greatly reduce energy consumption by Chrome.

1. Open Chrome and go to Settings.
2. Select Privacy and security > Site Settings.
3. Scroll down and click “Background sync.”
4. Use the slider to disable the background sync.

What does it do? It stops the websites from communicating with your Mac (even after you’ve left that site). Was it enabled by default is a different question.

Chrome keeps freezing

Your browser is not just slow as a snail but keeps freezing? A spinning circle appears for a while? This is ordinary trouble with web browsers after continued use. And it may relate to the problem with the browser cache.

We've already told you how to remove the Chrome cache, so just go to the previous section and choose the way that works best for you: manual or easy one. Hopefully, this will help you to get rid of the spinning beach ball and fix the freezing issue.

Other ideas to try:

• Close all tabs
• Restore settings (Settings > Advanced > Reset settings)
• Log out from all your Google accounts and log in back again.
• Try browsing in an incognito window and see if that helps.
  
• Reinstall Chrome from scratch

Some services, like Dropbox, Alfred, and notably, Google Drive are constantly self-updating in the background. As in the previous step, you can use Activity Monitor and force-quit these processes.

Google Chrome is not responding

However, if your browser is not responding at all and you can't open the menu to clear the cache, browsing history, or delete extensions, try to force quit Chrome and then launch it again.

There are a few possible ways to force quit Google Chrome. Here is our comprehensive guide 'How to force quit Mac applications' that offers five different ways to deal with unresponsive apps. Pick your favorite one.

There are is a number of background plugins operating invisibly on every Mac. They could be various helpers, updaters, and everything else that supports the main application. For example, Chrome itself has an updater app that constantly communicates with the server. So, once again, go to your Activity Monitor and scan through your open processes. Try quitting anything Google-related there.

Another idea to try is to free up your RAM (random access memory) in the Terminal. This should unfreeze your Chrome, at least temporarily.

1. Open your Terminal app (you can find it via the Launchpad search).
2. Now, paste in sudo purge into the Terminal window.
3. Hit Enter

See if Chrome is feeling better now.

Google Chrome keeps crashing

Chrome freezing is one thing but crashing? That’s a much bigger issue as it’s a sign that something is broken. But what do we do with things that are broken around here? We fix them!

Probably the most common cause of crashes is a byproduct of one of Chrome’s strengths – its constant stream of exciting extensions. They make our browser experience more enjoyable and productive, but occasionally one of these extensions will be corrupted or introduce a bug that causes Chrome to crash.

Here’s what you should do to find a problematic Chrome extension.

1. Update your browser

Make sure Chrome is updated to the latest version. A new update could very well include the fix that will stop Chrome crashing.

2. Run a Safety check

The latest version of Google Chrome has a feature called Safety check. Go to Chrome Settings and select “Safety check” from the menu on the left. Press “Check now.” The browser will run a quick check to determine whether Google Chrome is up-to-date and protected from threats.

3. Turn off browser extensions

If that didn’t work or everything was already up-to-date, you can manually turn off your extensions and turn them back on, one at a time. This way, if the crashing goes away until a certain extension is turned back on – that’s when you’ve probably found the problem.

To manually disable and remove Chrome extensions:

• Open Chrome and go to Window > Extensions.
• Disable a few extensions or click Remove to completely delete them.
• Relaunch Chrome.

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Spend some time using Chrome without extensions and then slowly turn each one back on until your crashing returns. When you think you have the culprit, simply click the Trash can next to that extension in Settings > Extensions.

An even easier way to manage your extensions is with CleanMyMac X. You get more control over all your extensions, even those from other browsers, and disabling and removing them is as easy as can be.

To disable Chrome extensions the simple way:

• Click on the Extensions tab in CleanMyMac.
• Click on Chrome Extensions and disable as you like.

Chrome won’t open

Here’s the list of hacks you can try if you want to repair Chrome. When Chrome won’t open, the easiest is to restart your Mac. But that could be a bit disruptive. So here you are, some alternatives:

• Press and hold Command + Q — this will quit Chrome.
• Press Option + Command + Esc — opens a Force Quit pane.
• Uninstall Chrome and download it again.

If that doesn’t help, there’s a possibility that the problem is Google folder permissions.

Web pages not loading in Chrome

“Aw snap!”

This is Chrome’s custom message for when a web page fails to load. If you get this cheeky little message or any other loading error, chances are you’re going to fail to see the funny side.

The reasons for Chrome not loading pages can be wide-ranging and hard to pinpoint, but we’ve collected a checklist of fixes for you to work through.

• Check your internet connection.
• Update Chrome.
• Restart your Mac.
• Remove Chrome extensions (for steps see 'Google Chrome keeps crashing' section).
• Disable or relaunch hardware acceleration

Hardware acceleration is supposed to speed up your Chrome at the cost of your Mac's hardware resources. But quite often this feature crashes things.
Hardware acceleration is found here:
Chrome > Settings > Advanced > System

If you’re still unable to load web pages, a reset or reinstall of Chrome may be needed. We cover that very fix in the next section.

Chrome update failed

Chrome won’t update? Some users have experienced the frustration of Chrome refusing to update on a Mac. The first step would just be patience, but if days have passed and you’re still not getting anywhere, a reset or reinstall of Chrome may be in order.

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To reset Chrome manually:

• Launch Chrome and go to Preferences
• Scroll to the bottom and click on Advanced Settings.
• Scroll to the bottom and click on Reset Settings.
• Read the pop-up and Reset.
• Relaunch Chrome and try to update.

Note: Resetting Chrome will not remove your bookmarks, history, and saved passwords. A manual reset can be a bit scary, but as a workaround, you can use CleanMyMac X to reset Chrome without losing any data.

Reset Chrome with CleanMyMac X's free tool:

• Open CleanMyMac X
• Go to Uninstaller tab and find Google Chrome in the list
• Click Application Reset in the dropdown menu next to the Chrome icon.

If the browser is still not updating, download the latest installation file from the web and reinstall Chrome.

More tips to troubleshoot Chrome

Your Chrome browser should now be running great, but wait; there’s more! To improve your future browsing experience we’re sharing some of our favorite Chrome settings. Try these out and fall in love with Chrome even more.

Enable Prefetch

Want your web pages to load even faster? Go to Settings > Privacy and security. Here, select 'Cookies and other site data.' Toggle on 'Preload pages for faster browsing and searching.' This enables 'page prefetch' and makes Google Chrome load pages faster. Now the system will store the page and automatically load it the next time you visit the website.

Use shortcuts in Chrome browser

You’d be amazed at how much faster you can surf the web and get things done by learning just a few key shortcuts.

For example:

Command + t = new tab
Command + h = hide Chrome
Command + r = reload web page

Find the full list of commands at the official Google Chrome Support page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my Chrome keep freezing?

Usually, this is caused be caused by outdated browser caches. Open Chrome’s Preferences to delete recent browser data.

Why does Chrome use so much memory?

Chrome is in a constant back and forth with Google’s servers to process your data. You can help it by optimizing memory usage on your Mac. Use the Mac tune-up app, CleanMyMac X, to free up RAM and you disable heavy memory consumers.

How can I speed up my browsing experience?

As a first step, try removing all the unnecessary extensions in Chrome. Also, try to not use more than 2 memory-heavy services, like DropBox or Google Drive at a time.

Google Chrome Mac Os

That’s it. Hopefully, these fixes have made your web surfing better than it’s ever been. It just goes to show that even drastic problems like Chrome crashing can be solved with a little know-how and helpful apps like CleanMyMac X.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

Chrome For Macintosh

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