How to Open an Incognito Tab in the Chrome iPhone App

If you use Google Chrome as the Web browser on your desktop or laptop computer, then you may already be familiar with Incognito mode.

It is a browsing mode that you can enter in Chrome which keeps your Internet activity private. This means that any pages or searches you make will not be remembered or stored in the browser’s history.

If you have ever used InPrivate browsing in Internet Explorer or Private browsing in Firefox, then you may already be familiar with the concept.

The Chrome browser app on your iPhone allows for Incognito browsing as well, although the process is slightly different. Our guide below will show you how to start a new Incognito tab, and will also show you how to close it when you are done browsing privately.

Incognito Mode in Chrome on an iPhone

The steps in this article were written using an iPhone 6 Plus, in iOS 8.3. The version of the Chrome app being used is 43.0.2357.51, which was the most current version of the app that was available when this article was written.

If you have a lot of open tabs that you want to close, then this article about how to close all open tabs in Chrome can help.

Step 1: Open the Chrome app.

open the chrome browser
Step 1

Step 2: Tap the button at the top-right corner of the screen with the three vertical dots.

open the menu
Step 2

Step 3: Select the New Incognito Tab option.

open an incognito tab
Step 3

You should now see a screen similar to the one below.

sample incognito tab

Simply type a search term or Webpage address into the field at the top of the window. You can close an Incognito tab by tapping the square icon with the number at the top-right corner of the screen.

open the menu again

Then you can either tap the x at the top-right of the tab, or you can tap the button with the three vertical dots and select the Close All Incognito Tabs option.

close incognito tabs

Now that you know how to open an incognito tab in the Chrome iPhone app, you will be able to use this type of tab to view pages without saving them to your history.

The default Safari browser on your iPhone allows for private browsing as well. This article will show you how to use that feature.

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