Auto Refresh Plus

How to Auto Refresh a Page in Chrome

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Chrome has no built-in setting to reload a page on a timer. The quickest way is a free extension: install Auto Refresh Plus, open the page, click the extension icon, type the number of seconds and press START. The tab then reloads itself on that interval until you press STOP or close the tab.

Does Chrome have a built-in auto refresh?

No. Chrome can reload a page when you press F5, Ctrl+R (Cmd+R on a Mac) or the reload button, but there is no menu, flag or setting that repeats the reload on a schedule. Some older tutorials mention hidden flags or tab-discarding settings; those control memory use, not timed reloads.

A page can refresh itself if its own developer adds a refresh tag or a script, which is why some news sites and dashboards update on their own. For any other page, you need either an extension or a small piece of code that you run yourself. Both options are covered below, extension first because it works on every site and takes a few seconds to set up.

How do I auto refresh a page with an extension?

An auto refresh extension adds a timer to a tab. Auto Refresh Plus is free, has no account, and asks for just one thing: the number of seconds between reloads.

  1. 1Install Auto Refresh Plus from the Chrome Web Store and pin it to the toolbar (click the puzzle-piece icon, then the pin next to Auto Refresh Plus).
  2. 2Open the page you want to keep up to date.
  3. 3Click the Auto Refresh Plus icon. A small popup opens.
  4. 4Under “Enter time in seconds”, type how often the page should reload, for example 30.
  5. 5Press START. The countdown begins straight away.

That is all. You can switch to other tabs or other programs and the page keeps reloading on its timer. Each tab has its own timer, so you can refresh a price page every 10 seconds and a report every 5 minutes at the same time. To change the interval, press STOP, type a new number and press START again.

How do I auto refresh without installing anything?

If you cannot install extensions, for example on a locked-down work computer, you can make a page reload itself with a few lines of JavaScript in Chrome's console. There is one catch: a plain reload wipes out any script you ran, so setInterval(() => location.reload(), 30000) only reloads once. The trick is to load the page inside a frame and reload the frame instead.

  1. 1Open the page you want to refresh.
  2. 2Press F12 (or Ctrl+Shift+J, Cmd+Option+J on a Mac) to open DevTools, then click the Console tab.
  3. 3Paste the snippet below, change 30 to the number of seconds you want, and press Enter.
const seconds = 30;
const frame = document.createElement('iframe');
frame.src = location.href;
frame.style.cssText = 'position:fixed;inset:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0';
document.body.replaceChildren(frame);
setInterval(() => frame.contentWindow.location.reload(), seconds * 1000);

This works on many sites, but not all of them. Sites that forbid being shown in a frame (common on banking, shopping and social sites) will show a blank page, and the timer stops as soon as you reload the tab yourself or close it. Chrome may also warn you before letting you paste into the console; type allow pasting when asked. For more options, including a bookmarklet and the meta refresh tag, read how to refresh a page without an extension.

Why does auto refresh stop in background tabs?

Chrome tries to save memory and battery by putting tabs you have not looked at for a while to sleep. This is called Memory Saver. A sleeping tab is unloaded, so nothing on it runs, including timers. When you click the tab again, Chrome reloads it.

If a page you are refreshing keeps going to sleep, tell Chrome to keep that site active:

  1. 1Open Chrome’s menu (the three dots) and choose Settings.
  2. 2Click Performance.
  3. 3Under “Always keep these sites active”, click Add and enter the site’s address.

Energy Saver, which kicks in on laptops running on battery, can also slow down background tabs. Plugging in your laptop or turning Energy Saver off for the session helps. If refreshing still stops, the help page lists other causes and fixes.

How do I stop it?

With Auto Refresh Plus, click the extension icon on the tab and press STOP. Closing the tab also ends the timer. If you used the console snippet, reload the page normally (F5) and the frame and timer disappear.

Using a different browser? The steps are almost the same in Chromium-based browsers; see how to auto refresh in Edge, Brave and Opera. And if you are refreshing to stay logged in, read how to keep a website session alive first, because the right interval there is longer than you might think.