I never let Chrome run in the background, ever. Chrome has a habit of running in the background even after explicitly closing it. The main reason is that an app or extension might keep it awake to complete tasks such as sending a notification. It may also be allowed to start up with your PC, so it will keep processes open even if you didn’t open Chrome at all.

• Chrome Continue Download After Closing

I don’t like Chrome eating up resources for no reason, and I personally find it rather shady when Chrome runs resources worth a 3D game when I don’t even have extensions installed. So I make sure Chrome doesn’t run in the background both from Chrome settings and from my Windows PC settings. In this post, I’ll you how to stop Chrome from running in the background whether it’s running after closing or on PC startup.

This happens regardless of whether the Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed checkbox is checked in Settings. Two workarounds exist: either reboot the machine or open Task Manager and kill the hanging chrome.exe process that is responsible for this problem. But, of course, this is no long-term solution. May 24, 2019 To change the default behavior of Chrome OS when you close the lid, click the clock area to open the system tray, and then click on the Settings cog. Scroll down, and under the Device section, click “Power.” Toggle the switch beside “Sleep when lid is closed” to the Off position.

Stop Chrome from running in the background after closing

One of the Chrome advanced settings can stop Chrome from running in the background by disabling apps and extension background processes when Chrome is closed. Here’s how to do it:

Click on the Chrome main menu at the top-right corner and select “Settings” from it.

Now scroll down to the very bottom and click on “Advanced”.

Here disable the option “Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed” in the “System” section.

That’s it, Chrome will now close properly when you will hit the cross button without any background processes open.

Stop Chrome from running in the background at PC startup

In Windows, you can use the System Configuration menu to manage startup apps and disable Chrome from starting up with PC. Here’s how:

Press Windows+R keys on the keyboard to open “Run” dialog and type “msconfig” here to open System Configuration.

Now move to the “Startup” section and uncheck the checkbox next to Google Chrome. You can press “OK” to apply the changes.

This will stop Chrome from running in the background on future startups of Windows.

The above instructions work on all versions of Windows. Although, in Windows 10 you can also access startup apps from the Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc).

Wrapping up

By using both of the above instructions, you can make sure that Chrome never runs in the background. Although do keep in mind that by stopping Chrome from running in the background, you might miss on important notifications while Chrome is closed. If that’s not a problem for you, then closing the Chrome background process is the best decision for your PC.

A frustrating issue that I have encountered on multiple recent customers’ PCs is an inability to completely close all Google Chrome processes–and, even more frustratingly, a consequent inability to reopen Chrome once it has been closed on the machine. This happens regardless of whether the Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed checkbox is checked in Settings.

Two workarounds exist: either reboot the machine or open Task Manager and kill the hanging chrome.exe process that is responsible for this problem. But, of course, this is no long-term solution.

Fortunately I have found the long-term solution! Keep in mind it may be different in your case depending on the cause, but it appears that this problem is always a product of one of two conditions:

1. A problematic plugin/extension, or
2. Corrupt User Data of some sort.

For sake of justification, in the case of my customers’ machines, the first one was caused by a problematic QuickTime plugin (disabling it fixed the problem), and the second one was a corrupt Cookies store–one which could not be cleared using the Clear Browsing Data dialog.

In light of this, there is a relatively easy way to solve either. Here is the process by which I propose you approach the solution in your particular case:

1. First, open Chrome and navigate to chrome:plugins. Disable all plugins and restart the browser. You may have to kill chrome.exe manually once and then reopen/reclose the browser to test this. If the behavior persists, reenable the plugins one-by-one to narrow down the one which is responsible.
2. If this doesn’t work, reenable all plugins, then navigate next to chrome:extensions and disable all extensions next. Repeat the close/open process to see if the behavior persists.

If this still doesn’t work, now that you’ve ruled out any plugin/extension issues, you’ll need to employ this final phase of the fix, which involves locating corrupt User Data and fixing it.

METHOD 1: From The Ground Up

The first approach involves recreating a new User Data store for your Chrome profile. This is the most surefire way of correcting the issue as it involves working from the ground up with a new profile and reintroducing customizations (such as Bookmarks, Preferences, etc.) until you find one which is a problem (in my case, it was Cookies). Here’s how it works:

1. Open up a folder browser window (a Windows Explorer window) on your PC and navigate to the folder %LOCALAPPDATA%GoogleChrome
2. Inside this folder, you will find a subfolder called User Data. Make sure Chrome is closed (including the hanging chrome.exe process), then rename this folder to something such as User Data.old
3. Open Chrome again and close it. Voila, no problems.
4. Note that a new User Data folder has now been created which is blank. Here’s the tricky part. The new profile doesn’t have any of your previous data in it (as you probably noticed). If you’re simply using a roaming Google Chrome profile (such as one where you sign in while opening the browser) to retain your settings, it’s as easy as signing in again to repopulate your stuff. But if you aren’t, you’ll need to manually copy over the data from the corrupt profile. To do so:
   1. Navigate to %LOCALAPPDATA%GoogleChromeUser Data.oldDefault to get to the old corrupt profile data that you are no longer using.
   2. Open another folder browser window and navigate to the new profile data here: %LOCALAPPDATA%GoogleChromeUser DataDefault
   3. Close Chrome (if it isn’t already) and copy over the following user data files within this folder one at a time, opening and closing Chrome in-between each time to check for a hanging chrome.exe process after the file is copied:
      1. Archived History
      2. Bookmarks
      3. Extension Cookies
      4. Favicons
      5. History
      6. Login Data
      7. Preferences
      8. Shortcuts
      9. Top Sites
      10. Visited Links
   4. If you copy a file and the behavior reappears, that’s obviously your culprit. In my case, it was Cookies, which you’ll notice I didn’t even list above because I bet that’s what your problem is too!

METHOD 2: From The Top Down

You can reverse this method if you want to try and retain as much as possible of your profile (i.e., if you have a ton of extensions installed that you don’t want to redownload–though to restore those you can technically also simply copy the subfolders within the Default folder as well that relate to them). First I would create a backup of the User Data folder before beginning just in case, and afterwards I’d begin renaming suspect files one by one until you find the culprit. Start with Cookies and go through the rest of the files in the Default folder until you find the problem.

Thank goodness this is solved! It’s an annoying one.

Chrome Continue Download After Closing