I have a MacBook Pro with Touchbar, which I really like! Safari works with the Touchbar; can Google Chrome too?
Your timing in asking this question is splendid because as of the writing of this post, the very latest version of Google Chrome – version 60 – does indeed support the Mac TouchBar and in fact, adding support for the TouchBar is the primary improvement in this release of the popular Web browser from Google. Before you get too excited, however, know that it’s not quite the same as the nifty Safari TouchBar support that offers an easy way to navigate between tabs.
But the addition of any support is a big deal for those of us with the TouchBar MacBook Pro, so one hopes that in the future either there’ll be some way to specify exactly how you want it to work or at least a couple of alternative layouts ready for choosing.
Nonetheless, it’s still useful, so let’s have a look.
First stop is to ensure that you have the very latest version of Google Chrome on your Mac system. Easiest way to do that is to type “about:” in the address bar. You’ll get a nerdy, detailed version dump, but the first line will confirm exact version number:
You can see that I’m running version 60.0.3112.78. Pretty detailed version number, if you ask me.
If it’s not version 60.* or you don’t really like that output, you can also find out the version by choosing “About Google Chrome” from the “Chrome” menu on the menu bar. That’ll show what version you have and even give you an option to upgrade if needed:
Either way, I’m at version 60 so all is good. In fact, I open up a few tabs in Google Chrome and here’s what’s shown on the TouchBar:
Only about 2/3 of the TouchBar is available to Chrome, so it’s showing forward and backward buttons, a reload / stop loading button, a big “Search or type URL” button, a star to favorite the current page and a “+” to quick open a new tab. Useful.
Of course, tap on the “<” button adjacent to the “+” and the old-school function keys spread across the TouchBar, eclipsing all Chrome features:
This can be customized in MacOS X so yours might be slightly different. Want to go back to the Chrome version? Just tap on the “X” leftmost in the standard TouchBar layout and it’ll switch back.
That’s it. Not quite as useful as the Safari TouchBar support, as shown:
The shortcut for individual tabs is definitely cool, but this new support from Chrome is definitely better than nothing. I would like to see previous and next TAB as the two leftmost buttons, but otherwise, it’s definitely functional and is growing on me already.