'Allow fullscreen': How to get rid of those annoying messages in Google Chrome

How-to
By Paul Cooper
published

Here's how to never, ever see those annoying messages again on Google Chrome that say "Press ESC at any time to exit fullscreen. Allow fullscreen?"

Chrome thumbnail on a computer screen
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

You know those annoying messages that say "Press ESC at any time to exit fullscreen. Allow fullscreen?" Here's how to never, ever see those again.

Hide "allow fullscreen" messages in Chrome

To stop the messages, simply head to Google Chrome's "content settings" section of the settings tab, scroll down to Fullscreen and click "Manage exceptions". Or you can just copy chrome://settings/contentExceptions#fullscreen into your address bar, if you don't want to go rummaging through all the confusing settings.

Now, you're going to see a list of sites where you've already allowed fullscreen privileges. For some reason, since the introduction of HTML5 on many websites, this warning has been forced to appear on sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and just about any site with video.

Now what you want to do is click on the name of one of those sites, and edit the name of it so that it applies to every site anywhere.

Change the name of the site to *://*/* and save the edit. You can see an illustration of this below.

screenshot of Google Chrome settings for turning off fullscreen notifications

The entry will now disappear from the list instantly - but don't worry! That means it has taken effect.

Congratulations! You'll never have to give your permission to watch a video again. Now, you will still see another message saying "You have gone full screen" whenever you expand a video. We know - we hate it too! But for now, that's going to sticking around until a later version of the browser comes along.

Paul Cooper
Paul Cooper

Paul has worked as an archivist, editor and journalist, and has a PhD in the cultural and literary significance of ruins. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The BBC, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Discover Magazine. His first novel, River of Ink, was published in January 2016, and his second novel, All Our Broken Idols was released in May 2020. He writes, produces and hosts the Fall of Civilizations podcast, which has charted in the top ten British podcasts, and gained upwards of 40 million listens since it launched in 2019.