Google Chrome is constantly getting updates — we know, because we’re tracking them every single week. And while Google Chrome handles these updates by itself most of the time, you might be wondering how to trigger Chrome to update manually. Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to update Google Chrome on your PC, Mac, Android, or iPhone devices, and we’ll show you how to do it.
How to update Google Chrome on your PC or Mac
First, some background on how updates work in Google Chrome. By default, Google Chrome is constantly checking for the latest version of Chrome to download. So if you’ve landed on this article simply because you want to make sure Chrome is up to date or you have the latest features, chances are you already do. Unless you’ve turned off automatic updates for some reason, updates are downloaded automatically in the background as soon as they’re available, and closing and reopening your browser (which most of us do many times a day) are pushing those downloaded updates live on your machine.
In many cases, the latest version might already be downloaded, but Chrome is just waiting for you to give it a restart. That’s why you might see the top-right corner of the browser (where you normally see the three dots “More” button) turn into an arrow of a few different colors. A green arrow means the update has been waiting to install 2 days, orange means 4, and red means 7. No matter the case, just click that arrow and click “Update Google Chrome” to update and restart your browser.
There are some situations where you might not be automatically updated to the latest and most secure version of Google Chrome. As mentioned, if you’ve turned off automatic updates, then you’re going to have to go digging in the Settings menus of Chrome each time you want to update. To do that, you can simply click this easy shortcut right here if you’re using Chrome or follow these steps:
- Click the “More” 3 dots button
- Click Settings
- Click the hamburger menu on the left side
- Click About Chrome
From there, you should see the above screen or something like it. You should be able to manually check for updates, after which Chrome will notice there’s a newer version than the one you’re running and it’ll download it as expected. You can then manually restart your browser and you should be up and running on the latest version of Google Chrome.
How to update Google Chrome on Android and iOS
Updating Google Chrome on your Android or iOS device is a much more straightforward experience than updating the desktop version. Google facilitates updates to Chrome on iOS and Android through their respective app stores. On an Android device, simply open up the Play Store app and head to “My apps and games” where you’ll see a full list of apps that need to be updated. On iOS, you can head to the App Store and tap the “Updates” tab. If there’s a new version of Chrome available, you’ll see it there.
More on Google Chrome:
- Half of Google’s $3.4 million vulnerability rewards went to Android and Chrome bugs in 2018
- Google Chrome dark mode on Windows 10 and macOS respects system-wide setting w/ latest Canary release
- Google Chrome will soon warn you of ‘lookalike URLs’ for mistyped domains
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