Skip to content

Disable the Blinking Cursor in Chrome app

Do you want to disable the blinking caret cursor in Google Chrome? Learn how to turn off this blinking mouse within the browser's settings on a computer.

The blinking text cursor often appears when typing or marking text in editor mode. However, Chrome offers an accessibility feature for navigating within content using the blinking caret cursor.

We can enable or disable the cursor blink under the Accessibility settings in the browser app.

However, a rather intriguing issue is happening, surprising many Chrome users. According to them, the blinking cursor also started appearing in non-editable regions.

Caret browsing or text cursor blinking on google chrome

In this guide, we have shared the steps to disabling the blinking text cursor in the Chrome app.

On this page, you can find and jump to:

Disable Blinking Caret Cursor

The blinking cursor is not due to any virus or third-party add-ons. It is an accessibility feature introduced that you can easily managed as and when needed. Here are the steps to disable:

  1. Launch the Google Chrome browser.
  2. Click on the Menu vertical 3-dots icon and select Settings option.
    Google Chrome Settings options
  3. Scroll to the end of the page, and click to expand Advanced settings.
    Google Chrome Advanced Settings hidden option
  4. Scroll to the Accessibility section and disable the toggle next to ‘Navigate pages with a text cursor‘ to turn off the blinking cursor.
    Navigate Pages with text cursor toggle button chrome

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 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.

Turn on caret browsing on chrome browser

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

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 the users complete control of this feature to enable or disable, and that’s the least one could have asked for.

Lastly, if you've any thoughts or feedback, then feel free to drop in below comment box. You can also report the outdated information.

Please share the article if you find it helpful:

Disclosure: This page may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive compensation for your purchases; of course at no extra cost to you (indeed, you may get special discounts).
Kushal Azza

Kushal Azza

Kushal Azza is a Google Certified IT Professional, Digital Content Creator, and Go-To Digital Marketer with Engineering Degree. He has over a decade of experience solving tech problems, troubleshooting, and innovating digital solutions. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

17 comments and feedback

  1. Thank you!!
    This has been bothering me for a long time and I simply thought that somewhere I had picked up some bug. It has helped a lot.
    Once again, thank you!

Leave a thought or feedback

Please leave a descriptive comment or feedback with your real name. Our human moderator vets every comment, and it may take 24 to 48 hours to get published or rejected.

Your email address will not be published, and we will never spam your inbox. Required fields are marked *