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How to Bring Back the Expired Chrome Flags

In this guide, we will show you the steps to bring back the expired Chrome flags in various Chromium-based browsers. Google runs three different builds of its browser- the stable, beta, and canary. The last one is the most unstable o the three and is solely used for debugging and testing unreleased features. On the other hand, the beta version is generally used by tech enthusiasts who are ready to trade-off for browser stability in order to try out new features before others. And the stable build?

Well, it needs no introduction of any sort. All in all, Google has created a niche testing environment where the developers and testers could try out the yet-to-be-released features. And all these are carried out via its Flags page. For the unware, Flags are experimental features that are aimed at enabling or disabling certain browser functionalities. While it was earlier used only by the developers. nowadays even the general audiences are inclined towards it. Not always out of choice but mostly out of compulsions.

In recent times, the Silicon Valley giants are forcibly implementing features without taking consent from the userbase. So the users are left with no choice but to find out any experimental feature flags that could revert such changes. The perfect example of the same is Google’s implementation of the Tab Groups feature across both its Android and Web browsers. To disable this change and bring back the old tab layout, you had to tweak a few flags, namely ‘Tab Grid Layout’, ‘Tab Groups Continuation”, and “Tab Groups UI Improvements”.

However, there’s a major issue with these flags- they are temporarily in nature and could be expired without any prior notice. For example, the aforementioned flags have already expired with version 90 and users have no choice but to stick with the new tab UI. So if you also come across any such issues then this guide shall come in handy. In this tutorial, we will show you the steps to bring back the expired Chrome flags on your Chromium-based browser. Follow along.

How to Bring Back the Expired Chrome Flags

How to Bring Back the Expired Chrome Flags

So how will this be carried out? Well, Google preserves most of the expired flags of the last two versions under a flag itself! So you just need to enable that certain flag and it shall bring back all the expired Chrome flags. Here’s how it could be done:

  1. To begin with, launch Chrome and copy-paste the below location in its address bar:
    chrome://flags

    access expired chrome flags

  2. If you are using any other Chromium browser, then you could still use the same address. For example, if you use the above address in Edge, then it will automatically convert it to edge://flags and take you to its Flags section.
    bring back expired edge flags
  3. Once you reach there, head over to the Search bar and type in the below keywords:
    temporary unexpire

    how to use expired chrome flags

  4. It shall bring in the Temporary Unexpire flags for its two previous browser versions. For example, I used the above flag in my Chrome version 95, so I got the following two flags:
    Temporarily unexpire M93 flags
    Temporarily unexpire M94 flags

    use expired chrome flags

  5. Moving on, now change the state of both these flags from Default to Enabled.
  6. Once done, hit the Relaunch button that appears at the bottom.
    enable temporary unexpire chrome flags
  7. Once the browser restarts, you will be able to use the flags that were available in the previous two versions but have been expired in the current browser build.

So with this, we round off the guide on how you could bring back the expired Chrome flags in any Chromium-based browser. One major shortcoming of this tweak is that it only brings back the flags of the previous two browser versions and not the ones before that. But as the popular saying goes, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush! So let’s make full use of the same!


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