Google is working on a compact mode in the Chrome browser. It aims at offering an alternative UI that should free up more space on screen and reduce control padding. This way, the browser will get more room to display the web content. At the moment, the feature is only available in the desktop branch of the browser.
It is an early implementation, so currently it only exists in the Canary version of the browser. The enabled compact mode reduces the height of the toolbars in Chrome, as follows.
The bookmarks bar has been resized from 34 pixels in height to 30 pixels. Additionally, the padding between the buttons on the bookmarks bar has been eliminated, dropping from 4 pixels to zero. The margin for the toolbar separator has also decreased from 6 pixels to zero. Furthermore, this update reduces the size of the tab bar, with the padding between tabs and the new tab button decreased from 6 pixels to zero. But there will be more process in the near future.
Those who want to test the change right away must go with the Canary version of Google Chrome. You can download it here. After installing it, you will need to enable a flag to activate the new UI.
How to Enable Compact Mode in Google Chrome
To enable the compact mode in the Chrome browser, do the following.
- Open a new tab in Chrome.
- Type
chrome://flags/#compact-modein the URL box and hit Enter. - Change the Compact mode for the browser - Prototype option from Default to Enabled.
- Relaunch the browser when prompted.
- To enable the Compact mode, right-click on an empty space in the tab row (window title) and select Toggle Compact Mode from the context menu.
That is all about enabling it.
The new UI will be applied the browser header, to all its tabs.
Below are screenshots of the top Chrome frame in both normal and compact mode. As you can see, there is indeed a room for improvements. You'll only get a few pixel of extra space, which is not a game changer. This may change dramatically after development is completed. You can track the progress on GitHub.
Chrome's Compact Mode addition is an alternative to "space saving" features you can find in other browsers. Edge, for example, offers vertical tabs for same, and Mozilla Firefox includes an option to change the user interface density on the Customize page. The latter even includes its own "Compact View", but you have enable it in about:config, as the UI lacks the button for it. See Enable Compact Density in Firefox 89 and higher.
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and for the compact context menu?
let’s wait and see what they will add.