Short answer
Chrome lets you change the new tab background and hide the shortcuts, but not much more. For a calm page with a clock, your own bookmarks and a few notes, use a new tab extension like NN-tab.
You open a new tab dozens of times a day. Each time you see a search box, a row of shortcuts Chrome picked for you, and often news or suggestions you didn't ask for.
Tidy it with Chrome's own settings
- Open a new tab and click Customize Chrome at the bottom right.
- Under Appearance, pick a plain colour or your own picture.
- Under Shortcuts, choose My shortcuts to pick your own, or turn shortcuts off.
That's about all Chrome lets you change. You can't add notes, sort sites into groups, or remove the big search box.
A calmer page instead
NN-tab is a free extension I made to replace the new tab page with something quiet:
- A big, clear clock with the date.
- Your favourite sites as tiles, sorted into groups like Work and Social.
- A short to-do list.
- A quote you like, and your own wallpaper.
Everything stays on your computer. There's no account and no tracking.
Add it to Chrome
NN-tab isn't in the Chrome Web Store yet, so you add it yourself. It takes two minutes: download it, unzip it, open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode and click Load unpacked. The NN-tab page shows each step.
It works in Edge and Brave too.