Chrome Memories feature could replace your browser history, Google Activity and more

We’ve been tracking a Chrome developer flag for a while now that’s called ‘Chrome Memories’. First discovered by Dinsan at Chrome Story, the URL chrome://memories returned a blank page for weeks. Then, little by little the Chrome development team added more page elements. Initially, a simple line of text that read ‘Based on previous web activity’. Then, a blue header with a title at the top left of the page that said ‘Memories’, and a ‘Search memories’ feature.

Now, with the release of Chrome OS 92 on the Canary channel, the page has been populated with seemingly everything it needs in order for the feature to launch! The main part of the page is littered with a seemingly endless wall loaded with things you’ve previously searched for. This section says ‘Try searching for’. Clicking one of these items will take you directly to a standard Google search with results for that keyword.

Scrolling down a bit on the Chrome Memories page, you’ll be presented with a section titled ‘From tab groups and bookmarks’, leading me to believe that this will, in fact, be tied directly into Assistant Memory, or at the very least your Reading List as Tab Groups will eventually be collapsed there for later recall. I predicted this a few weeks ago when we discussed Assistant Memory!

Just below the tab groups and bookmarks area is ‘From Chrome History’, which shows you all of your Chrome history. Each item in this list has a three dots ‘more’ menu next to it that currently does nothing. I imagine this will allow you to remove that item from your history and perhaps do a few other relevant things as well. Some items even have a drop-down arrow which will show you nested history results that occurred for that website or PWA around the same time.

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Lastly, Searching for memories using the bar at the top will return results for all three of these things simultaneously. If Google is looking for a way to tie the user experience together across its services and features in Chrome while humanizing them, Memories could be a great way to do it. Being that this new feature links together Chrome History, Tab Groups (and eventually Reading List), I can see it replacing your Chrome History and even your Google ‘My Activity’ page altogether. It has the same layout and nested features as ‘My Activity’, though the latter pertains to more than just Chrome – it collects everything you’ve ever done across any Google service.

With that being said, it’s the perfect segue into Assistant Memory and I honestly can’t wait to see where the company takes this. My take is that eventually, you’ll have a Memories button at the top of the Chrome browser in place of the ‘Reading list’ icon where you’ll access all of your memories, regardless of their type – be they bookmarks, search history, search terms, reading list items, or tab groups. Later, I can see the company tying in Recipes, Shopping items, and Chrome Cart, Drive files, and more – all recently added to the new tab page via modules activated with other developer flags. Eventually, I can see Chrome Memories making its permanent home on the new tab page of your browser!