How to Disable the Blinking Text Cursor in Chrome?

Caret Navigation or the blinking I-shaped cursor appears when dealing with a word processor, notepad, spreadsheets, and other text-related documents.

It signifies that you could add or edit texts in those regions. In other words, you would see it wherever there is an editable element.

Since the early days of browsing, this has been there, and its usage is no hidden secret. However, a rather intriguing issue is happening with this, leaving many Chrome users somewhat surprised. According to them, the blinking cursor also started appearing in non-editable regions.

For example, if you performed a Google search and clicked on the description of any results, the cursor would change to a blinking one.

In hindsight, you could edit those HTML results or any webpage. But since that is practically not possible, it left many users stumped.

There were growing concerns about whether their browser was infected with malware or a virus.

If you are also getting bugged by this issue, then fret not. This guide shall make you aware of the underlying cause of this issue and, more importantly, how to rectify it.

So, let’s start with the guide to disable the blinking text cursor in Chrome without further ado.

Disable Blinking Cursor in Chrome

Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room- the blinking cursor is not due to any virus or third-party add-ons. It is an accessibility feature introduced by Chrome that you can easily enable or disable as and when needed.

Here are the steps to disable blinking text cursor or caret browsing in Google Chrome:

1. Launch the Google Chrome browser.
2. Click on the Menu situated at the top right.
3. Select Settings from the drop-down menu that appear.
   
4. Scroll to the end of the page, and click to expand Advanced settings.
   
5. Scroll to the Accessibility section and disable the toggle next to ‘Navigate pages with a text cursor‘ to turn off the blinking cursor.
   

It will immediately disable the Chrome browser’s caret browsing or blinking text cursor feature. You can now click to select the text as normal.

Alternatively, you can use the chrome keyboard shortcut to enable or disable the caret browsing. It will help if you hit the F7 key on your keyboard to toggle off the feature.

However, suppose that key has been assigned any other functionality (such as seeking the previous/next tracks, volume increase/decrease, etc.). In that case, you need to additionally press the Fn key along with the F7 key.

Bottom Line: Disable Chrome Caret Browsing

With this, we round off the guide on disabling the blinking text cursor in Chrome. We have shared two different methods – using accessibility settings and keyboard shortcuts.

It is still anyone’s guess why Google decided to turn on the caret browsing in non-editable elements. Perhaps, it’s one of the accessibility features for the person using the keyboard.

On the brighter side, though, they have given complete control of this feature to the users to enable or disable, and that’s the least one could have asked for.

On that note, all queries regarding blinking text cursor on Chrome are welcomed. Please share your thoughts on how helpful or annoying the caret browsing feature is.