Restoring the Side Panel button in Google Chrome

A recent update to Google Chrome has got rid of the side panel button and added a new “pinning” feature instead.

The side panel button opened up the bookmarks sidebar and, from there, you could switch it to one of the other sidebars. In particular, I use the Reading List feature, so this was how I accessed it.

The idea now is that you open whichever sidebar you want and then you can pin it into place – multiple ones if you wish. Google have said, “You can open most side panel features through the Chrome menu”. Which is true. But the reading list is a number of clicks deep, and not obvious as to where it is (Chrome Menu -> Bookmarks and lists -> Reading List -> Show Reading List). I kinda don’t understand why they got rid of the side panel button, but also add in the pinning feature.

Regardless, for now, you can revert this change.

1. Go to chrome://flags/
2. Look for Side panel navigation and pinning updates
3. Switch this to “Disabled”
4. You’ll be prompted to restart your browser – once this is done, the side panel button will have returned

I suspect this option won’t be available forever, so my hope is that Chrome will find a half-way house at some point, to make it easier for those users who don’t want a list permanently pinned.

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