There are times when autofill can be a right pain, here's how to turn off autofill and clear autofill data from Google Chrome...
Autofill. Incredibly useful until it isn’t right?
For those who don’t know what autofill is, it is a built-in feature of Google Chrome that remembers key bits of personal information when filling out forms or signing into accounts. So things like names, dates, phone numbers, home and email addresses and even passwords. Being a software development company, we are obvious advocates for any automated process. No brainer - saves time!
If you are an office manager for example, you may find yourself forever buying in office supplies. In this case autofill can be so useful. Also if you login to various accounts on a daily basis, you can do so straight away without having to retrieve or remember a password. Although if you want to know how to remember there is another tech tip on that here.
However, there are times when autofill can be a right pain! Moving offices or when your business has multiple locations. You can end up spending a significant amount of time trying to battle the force that is autofill changing and editing forms. Or if you are on autopilot you run the risk of sending an order to the wrong address and having to go through the whole rigmarole of retrieving it. Or in more personal circumstances it could act as a constant reminder of a painful break up …
… but let’s not dwell and crack on with how to turn off autofill and clear autofill data from Google Chrome.
How to turn Autofill off in Chrome?
- Tap the Google Chrome menu icon which is the 3 vertically stacked dots found in the top right hand corner of your browser window.
- Go to Settings > Autofill (found in the column on the left hand side of the new page).
- Select the category of information you wish to disable Autofill for:
- Password Manager
- Payment methods
- Addresses and more
- Slide the various Toggles to OFF as appropriate.
Google Chrome will automatically action your request and save these settings.
How to clear Autofill Data in Chrome?
- Click on the Google Chrome menu icon which is the 3 vertically stacked dots at the top right hand corner of the browser window.
- Select History and then select History again in the new menu that appears.
- Click Clear browsing data on the left hand side of the screen
(For the keyboard shortcut enthusiasts among you, you can skip the above steps by simply pressing CTRL+SHIFT+DEL)
- A new screen will appear. Select the "Advanced" tab.
- In the drop down menu at the top for Time range, select the “All Time” option in order to clear all saved data.
- Within the main list make sure to:
- check the “Autofill Form Data” option if you want Google to forget your personal details such as addresses.
- check the "Passwords and other sign-in data" option if you want Chrome to forget your old passwords.
- Hit the "Clear Data" button.