Reset Chrome to Stop Automatically Opening Apps
Automatically opening apps from Chrome should be handy, but sometimes it’s just annoying. Dealing with the intrusive iTunes window when you just wanted to see a screenshot of an app can be tedious, especially since iTunes no longer even processes apps anymore. Sometimes you just want to copy the email address or download that torrent file instead of running it in Transmission. When applications open from the links you click, you can thank your browser’s “protocol handlers”. They are useful in some ways, but you can get rid of the more annoying ones by following a few steps (or deleting some cookies).
What protocol handlers do
The protocol handler gives Google Chrome permission to open an application installed on your computer and perform certain actions based on the link you choose. Selecting the “magic link” from Slack in your inbox will open the real Slack application and log in, while clicking on an email address can open your default email application, be it Outlook, Mail, or Thunderbird. You’ve probably clicked a link for one or two apps that automatically opened iTunes without your permission. This is how the protocol handler works.
Google used to let you control protocol handlers from its settings page. Currently? You can only enable or disable the protocol handler, no change is allowed. At least not on Google. However, with a text editor and a little know-how, you can edit the protocol handler rules yourself and get rid of those pesky apps without giving up the app handlers you know and love.
How to manually clear protocol handlers
If you don’t mind messing up your browser settings or don’t want to get rid of cookies and other browsing information, you can change the protocol handlers themselves by editing the text file in which they are located.
Windows 10
- Close Google Chrome. Check the taskbar and exit Google Chrome Assistant.
- On the Windows 10 taskbar, enter % LOCALAPPDATA% \ Google \ Chrome \ User Data and open an explorer window.
- In File Explorer, select View from the Ribbon and select the Hidden Files check box to display other files.
- Open the settings file using a text editor such as Notepad or an application such as Microsoft Visual Studio Code.
- Search the text file for the phrase “excluded_schemes” which contains your list of protocol handler preferences.
- Find the offending protocol (for example, “itmss” for iTunes or “slack” for Slack) and change its state from true to false, being careful not to remove punctuation marks.
- Save the file and open Chrome again.
macOS
- Close Google Chrome.
- With Finder selected, press Shift-⌘-G and enter the address of the ~ / Library / Application Support / Google / Chrome folder.
- Select the default folder and open the settings file in a text editor, such as a text editor.
- Search the text file for the phrase “excluded_schemes” which contains your list of protocol handler preferences.
- Find the offending protocol (for example, “itmss” for iTunes or “slack” for Slack) and change its state from true to false, being careful not to remove punctuation marks.
- Save the file and open Chrome again.
Simple and straightforward protocol handlers
You can completely reset the protocol handlers, although this will require clearing more data than you bargained for. Deleting your browser history will reset your protocol handlers and ask you to decide if you want them to be reopened by the associated application. Visit the Chrome Settings page, select Advanced, then select Clear Browsing Data. To delegate the deletion of browsing data only to the protocol handler settings, select the “Cookies and other site data” checkbox. You will be logged out of your websites, but the protocol handler data will be reset and you will not modify the text files.
Preventing further permanent changes to the protocol handler in the Chrome settings page is one way to never worry about overzealous applications again. Select Content Settings above the Clear Browsing Data option. Select Handlers, then disable the default handler feature by disabling any application from capturing all associated links and allowing you to choose when you want to open the application after selecting the associated link.