The Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro is incredibly useful and very powerful, provided the apps integrate it sensibly. Take Safari or Final Cut Pro, for example, or even non-Apple apps like Adobe Photoshop CC 2017; all these apps have a really cool integration with the Touch Bar. However, Google Chrome, one of the most used browsers in the world, still does not support the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro. So if you just bought the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and you are left without Touch Bar support in Chrome, Here’s how to get Touch Bar support in Chrome:
Method 1: Get Touch Bar Support in Chrome’s Canary Build
Some of you may not know, but the Chrome browser actually has three simultaneous builds provided by Google. There is a stable structure that most of you probably have, beta build this allows users to get early access to some new features implemented in Chrome and canary structure this is basically the most extreme of every feature added to Chrome. If you want to try Touch Bar support in Chrome, you can download and try the Canary build.
In the Chrome canary build, the Touch Bar includes static buttons for back, forward, refresh, new tab, and favorites. There’s also a search/address bar that lets you quickly type a URL or search for something. However, there is no way to customize the Touch Bar buttons, and unlike Safari, the Chrome Canary build does not bring a tab switcher or window preview on the Touch Bar. So yes, Touch Bar support in the Chrome Canary build is still at an early stage and we hope Google adds more options when it reaches the stable version.
note: Chrome’s Canary builds tend to be unstable and can crash or freeze at any time. You should only use Canary builds to test new features and not Chrome’s Canary build as your primary browser.
Method 2: Create Custom Touch Bar Buttons for Chrome
If you can’t wait for features from the current Canary build to make it into the stable Chrome build, that’s fine. You can actually use the app called Better Touch Tool to create a Touch Bar app for Chrome. The best part about it is that you can customize it endlessly and adjust it to your personal needs. If you want to create custom Touch Bar buttons for Chrome, just follow these steps:
- Download and install Better Touch Tool (45-day free trial, licenses start at $6. Launch the app and navigate to: “Preferences”.
- Here, go to the tab that says “Touch Bar”, To create buttons for the Touch Bar
- Click “+” under “Select Application“.
- Choose Google Chrome from the list of applications.
- Next, “+ Touch Bar ButtonTo add a new button to the Touch Bar that will only appear when Chrome is the active app.
- Enter a name for the button under “Touch Bar Button Name“, and choose an icon for him. You can also choose a custom icon for the button. First we will create a “New Tab” button. So “enter your name”New tabIn “Touch Bar Button Name”.
- At that time, Click on “Custom Keyboard Shortcut”and press “command + T”. This is the shortcut to open a new tab in Chrome.
After doing this, it will be possible Look for the “New Tab” button in the Touch Bar When you bring Chrome to the foreground. Similarly, you can create buttons to close tabs, switch to the next or previous tabs, and much more. Anything you can do with a keyboard shortcut can be easily and quickly assigned to a Touch Bar button with Better Touch Tool. Once complete, the Touch Bar will look a bit like this:
SEE ALSO: How to Get TouchBar Functionality on Any Mac
Get Touch Bar Support in Chrome
While it’s disappointing that Chrome isn’t starting to support the Touch Bar, at least it’s on Google’s roadmap. Until then, you can choose to stick with the Canary build (not recommended for primary use) or create your own Touch Bar buttons for Google Chrome with the Better Touch Tool. That said, there are many apps that support the Touch Bar, and you can do a lot of cool things with the Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro.
As always, we’d like to hear your thoughts on the Touch Bar and whether it’s a useful addition to the MacBook Pro’s marquee features. Also, if you know of any other way to enable Touch Bar in Chrome, let us know in the comments section below.
Support our work ❤️
If you enjoyed this article, consider leaving a tip to help us keep publishing great content.
