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Two years after Safari, Chrome plans to let you move the address bar to the bottom

Two years after Safari, Chrome plans to let you move the address bar to the bottom

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The feature is available in the latest TestFlight version of Chrome on iOS.

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A screenshot from Chrome’s settings.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

A test version of Google Chrome on iOS now lets you put the address bar on the bottom of the screen, as spotted by MacRumors contributor Steve Moser. It’s a nice change that lets you move the address bar closer to your thumb — though notably, it comes two years after Apple moved the URL bar to the bottom of Safari by default with iOS 15.

A screenshot of Chrome with the address bar on the bottom.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

The new Chrome feature was available for me through the version of the app you can get via TestFlight. There are two ways to change the location of the address bar. The easiest is pressing and holding on the bar, which brings up an option to switch its position. You can also change the bar’s location from Chrome’s settings. (A colleague in the UK wasn’t able to find the setting, so it may not be rolled out for everyone on the TestFlight build just yet.)

“We’re constantly experimenting with the Chrome UI based on feedback from users,” Google spokesperson Joshua Cruz said in a statement to The Verge. Cruz declined to share further details, timelines, or if the feature might be coming to Android.

The company has tried the address bar on the bottom on Android before: in 2017, it experimented with a way to put the URL bar on the bottom in Chrome for Android but later removed the feature.

I hope this feature is rolled out widely. As phone screens get ever-bigger, I think it makes sense to give people the option to make the address bar more accessible.

Update August 24th, 12:27PM ET: Added statement from Google.