Google Chrome has become a popular browser faster than any other browser in the browser market. It’s success is because it’s faster than any other browser; be it loading pages or the time it takes to open. The best part is it has a lesser memory footprint while running compared to any other browser. In fact, Firefox is losing its market share to Chrome because of this one reason and Firefox considering this aspect seriously.

Apart from all its nifty features, Chrome has a very handy feature which allows you to synchronize all your browser settings and bookmarks. This enables you to download your settings on any computer irrespective of whether it runs on Windows, Mac or Linux.

Managing bookmarks and organizing them has always been troublesome. People have used simple browser favourites to on-line services such as xmarks. Advantages of xmarks is it provides an on-line interface to your bookmarks and it has add-ons for different browsers to enable sync across multiple browsers.

What can be synchronized?

Once you enable the sync feature, chrome instantaneously syncs all your bookmarks, bookmarklets, add ons, chrome themes, Apps, Saved passwords, preferences and auto-fills. You can actually configure what to sync and what not to sync, which will give you the ability to disable syncing  information such as saved passwords and auto-fill data.

How to enable Synchronization?

To enable synchronization, click on Settings button on the right top corner; choose Options. Select “Personal Stuff” on the right pan or you can visit this link to land in to the options.  Click on the “Set up Sync…” button.

Set up Sync

Chrome will ask you to give your google account credentials. Once you give valid credentials and login, you will get a window which allows choosing between syncing all data and selective syncing.

Customize Sync Preferences

You can either choose to synchronize everything or select the one’s which you want. If you enable synchronization for passwords, they will be encrypted by default; however you have an option to encrypt all your synced data also. Once done, click OK and that’s all. Chrome keeps all the data safely saved on google servers tagged with your google account.

To download your settings on any other computer such as your home PC, again go to settings and enable synchronization. Within few seconds, chrome will download all synced data stored on the server including your bookmarks, theme and add ons. If you make any changes to settings, those changes will be synced and when you open Chrome on the other PC which you had configured, such changes will be downloaded instantly.

How do I stop synchronization and clear my data?

You have already enabled sync but what if you want to get rid of all the data from google servers? Yes there is a way to do that through Google Dashboard. Visit Google Dashboard and scroll to “Chrome Sync” section, which displays details on the data synced and time at which last sync was done. Click on “Stop sync and delete data from Google” and you are done.

How do I restore default settings and clear synced data on google chrome?

You had synced your data on a PC but now you want to clear all synced data from Chrome but not from the server. There is no straight forward way to do it but there is a workaround for that.

Chrome creates a file called “First Run” under the application root or under the user’s AppData folder.

For Windows XP :

C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application

For Windows Vista or Later:

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application

When Chrome loads each time, it checks for the file “First Run”. If the file is not present, it launches the initial setup wizard; just delete the file. Next time when Chrome starts the setup wizard will beinitiated.

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