How to Show (or Hide) the Bookmarks Bar in Chrome

You bookmarked a handful of sites, expected a row of shortcuts under the address bar, and got nothing. Or the opposite: it was there yesterday and it's gone today. Either way, the bookmarks bar in Chrome isn't broken — it's controlled by one setting most people never touch on purpose, and Chrome's own defaults make it easy to lose track of.

The fastest way: a keyboard shortcut

Press Ctrl+Shift+B (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+B (Mac) from any tab. This toggles the bookmarks bar on or off immediately — no settings menu, no restart. If you only remember one thing from this article, remember this shortcut; it's the same one every time, in every Chrome version.

Turning it on from the menu

If you'd rather use the UI, or you want to see the other display options while you're in there:

1. Click the three-dot menu (top right) → Bookmarks and lists → Show bookmarks bar. Or right-click anywhere in the empty space just below the address bar — the context menu that appears has the same toggle.
2. For more control, go to chrome://settings/appearance and find Bookmarks bar. Chrome gives you a choice here: Always show, Only show on new tab page, or off entirely.

That second setting — Only show on new tab page — is the one that trips people up most. It's Chrome's default for a lot of installs, and it means the bar looks like it "disappears" the moment you navigate to any real website, when actually it's working exactly as configured.

Why it's easy to lose track of

The bookmarks bar isn't hidden by a bug — it's hidden by a display rule you probably never set intentionally. A fresh Chrome profile, a new work laptop, or Chrome syncing your settings to a machine that had the bar off can all leave you looking for something that was never turned on to begin with. There's also no persistent visual cue (no greyed-out icon, no notification) telling you the setting exists, so it's genuinely easy to forget it's there until you go looking.

If the bar is on but looks empty

Showing the bar and having bookmarks in it are two different things. Chrome only populates the bar with bookmarks you've explicitly filed into the Bookmarks bar folder — everything else lives in Other bookmarks or whatever folder structure you built, invisible to the bar itself. Open the full manager with Ctrl+Shift+O (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Option+B (Mac), and drag anything you want as a one-click shortcut into the Bookmarks bar folder specifically.

When bookmarks alone aren't enough

The bookmarks bar is built for a small, fixed set of sites you visit constantly — it runs out of room fast, and it wasn't designed to hold the dozens of tabs (not sites) you're actively working across right now.

Amazing Tabs picks up where the bar's row of icons runs out:

• Save any tab with one click — no folder structure to maintain, no running out of horizontal space.
• Search instantly with ⌘K / Ctrl+K by title or content instead of scanning a row of favicons.
• Works across your open tabs, not just fixed shortcuts — save what you're mid-task on, not just sites you visit forever.
• Free for up to 100 saved links.

Out of room on the bookmarks bar? Add Amazing Tabs to Chrome — free, no signup. Save it once, find it in seconds.

Quick recap

• Ctrl+Shift+B / Cmd+Shift+B toggles the bookmarks bar on or off instantly from anywhere.
• "Only show on new tab page" in chrome://settings/appearance is the default that makes the bar look like it vanishes on regular sites.
• The setting is local per device — Chrome Sync carries your bookmarks, not the bar's visibility.
• An empty-looking bar usually means your bookmarks are filed outside the "Bookmarks bar" folder specifically — check the full manager.

Further reading: How to Bookmark an Entire Tab Group in Chrome for saving a whole project's worth of tabs at once, or How to Save Chrome Tabs Without Bookmarks if bookmarks are starting to feel like the wrong tool for what you're doing.

Add Amazing Tabs to Chrome — free → Install from the Chrome Web Store. 100 saved links free, upgrade only if you want unlimited and cross-device sync. See pricing for the full breakdown — including the $99 lifetime deal (capped at 200 spots).