Enable or Disable Guest Mode in Google Chrome

You can enable or disable Guest Mode in Google Chrome to control who can browse privately on your computer.

Guest Mode in Chrome provides a temporary browsing session that doesn’t save your history, cookies, or site data. This means anyone can use your browser on your PC without leaving a trace of their activity.

For example, you might want to disable Guest Mode if you want to ensure all users on your machine use their own Chrome profiles to save their data. Disabling it prevents new guest sessions from starting.

This feature is particularly useful on shared computers. It allows visitors to browse freely without compromising your personal browsing information.

Before proceeding, ensure your Chrome browser isn’t managed by an organization, as this can override local settings.

Enable / Disable Guest Mode in Chrome using the Registry

You can change this setting using the Windows Registry Editor. Warning: These changes require administrative privileges. Also, if your computer is managed by a school or work account, these settings may not persist after a Chrome update.

If your registry keys are locked by an existing policy, manual creation will fail. You must run the Registry Editor as an Administrator to make these changes.

First, open the Windows Registry. You should back up your registry before you start, or create a System Restore point as a safety measure.

Go to this path:

Computer\🗝️HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chromecopy

If you do not see the Google folder, right-click the Policies folder and create a new key named Google. Do the same for Chrome if it is missing.

Right-click the Chrome folder. Select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name it BrowserGuestModeEnabled.

Double-click BrowserGuestModeEnabled. Set the value to 0 to turn off Guest Mode. Set it to 1 to turn it on.

To restore the default settings, delete the BrowserGuestModeEnabled entry. You may need to restart your computer for these changes to work.

Using Google Chrome ADMX Templates

For businesses and IT departments, the recommended 2026 practice is to use the Group Policy Editor with Google Chrome ADMX templates. This is cleaner and more reliable than editing the registry manually. You can download the official policy templates from Google to manage these settings across multiple computers in your network.

Conclusion

You can control Guest Mode through the Windows Registry or via Group Policy. Always back up your registry before you change anything. If your computer is managed by an organization, please contact your IT department to change these settings.

Reference:

Chrome Enterprise Policy