How to Disable or Remove Reading List from Google Chrome

Google made sure to keep its Chrome Browser one of the best on the market, both in terms of efficiency and functionality. In one of its iterations from earlier this year, Google added the option of a reading list to its browser window. They have paired it with the Bookmarks option to make it easy for users to save web pages that they want to read later. While some of you may find it useful to be able to fork links you want to review, others may consider it a useless feature. In this article, we will discuss how you can disable or even completely remove the ‘Add to Reading List ‘ from Google Chrome.

ContentsHow to remove Reading List option from Google Chrome1]Remove Reading List from Google Settings2]Disable Add to Reading List option on Google Chrome3]Remove "Add to Reading List" option from Google ChromeWhat is the difference between playlists and bookmarks?

Personally, I find the playlist to be a handy addition. Bookmarks can get very messy for anyone browsing a lot of different things like a student or a professional and in the middle readings can get lost or hard to find. To add a link to your reading list, simply click on the star icon in the address bar, and select 'Add to Reading List'. While this makes keeping bookmarks easier, it's an extra step, so here's how you can get rid of it.

How to remove Reading List option from Google Chrome

There are 3 ways to disable or stop viewing reading list and "add to reading list" option of Google Chrome. We will discuss all three.

1]Remove reading-list from Google settings

At the top, below the Google Chrome address bar, is the bookmarks bar. Here there are your first favorite links, and in the right corner of this is the reading list. If you click on it, you will be able to see all the links that you have previously added to the list. If you want to remove this very option from the browser window, here's how to do it.

• Open Google Chrome
• Right-click anywhere on the bookmarks bar
• Locate the "Show Reading List" option. If there is a tick next to it, click on it and the Reading List option will disappear

Bringing this option back is just as easy. Click on the bookmarks bar again and select Show reading list. The option will return right away.

2]Disable the add-to-reading-list option on Google Chrome

If it's the "Add to Reading List" option you want to get rid of, so you can add other web pages to your existing reading list, here are the steps to follow.

• Open Google Chrome
• Into the address bar, paste the following:

chrome://flags/

• Here you will see the following two preferences:
  • Temporarily unexpired M94 flags.
  • Temporarily unexpired M95 Flags
• Open the drop-down menu next to these and select Enabled. If you don't see these options right away, type "Temporarily" into the "Search Indicators" search bar.
• Once you have made these changes, you will see an option to relaunch Chrome

Do that, and when Chrome relaunch, you'll see that the "Add Reading List" option is greyed out.

3]Remove "Add to Reading List" option from Google Chrome

In case you want to completely remove the "Add Reading List" option and only open the Bookmarks setting whenever you click on the star icon, there is a very simple process in place for that as well .

• Open Chrome and paste the following into your address bar

chrome://flags/#read-later

• This will present a flag named Playlist on your screen with the same drop-down menu as in the aforementioned process
• Open it and select disabled
• Relaunch using the prompt and wait for the Chrome window to open.

Now every time you click the star icon, the link is only saved as a bookmark, removing the option to add it to your reading list.

What's the difference between playlists and bookmarks?

Technically, there's no real difference between a link in your bookmarks and one you've bookmarked in your reading list. The reading list is just a dedicated list to exclusively house you all the links you want to read. As I mentioned earlier, this can be very useful for students and people who constantly read information from the web for their work.

We hope this article helped you understand what Reading List is on Chrome and decide whether or not you want this feature on your computer's browser.