Google Chrome Cupcake Icon

Martin Brinkmann
Jul 19, 2011
Updated • Apr 28, 2015
Google Chrome
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39

The Google Chrome web browser, after a recent update, displays a cupcake in the upper left corner of the screen.

To be precise, that cupcake is shown on the tab bar, and there on the left side of it. The tabs are then listed to the right of the icon.

This cupcake links to the new multi-profile feature of the Chrome web browser. When you left-click on the icon you get the profile selection menu with options to create a new profile, change the default profile's icon or to delete a profile.

Update: The cupcake icon was removed in recent versions of the browser. You find profile options on the right now instead where they are not in the way anymore.

google chrome cupcake

So what's the problem with the cupcake icon in the browser? Easy, it cannot be removed. That's right. Even if you only use one profile you see the profile selector in the upper left corner of the screen.

Google in the past minimized the browser interface up to a point where there is little left to be optimized in this regard. There is no status bar, no title bar. All the UI elements have been moved to the tab bar or address bar.

The cupcake icon breaks that pattern big time. So why is it displayed on single profile systems? Why not hidden in the Tools section somewhere for use on multi-profile systems?

I looked into Tools > Options to see if there is a way to disable the cupcake in the tab bar, but there is none. There is one setting under Personal Stuff > Profile that allows you to create a new profile, but that one is blanked out (nice).

I remembered a multi-profile option under about:flags, but that is gone now as well.

As of now, it is not possible to remove the cupcake icon from Google Chrome. Lets hope that Google sees this as a work of progress and that the company will add options to remove the cupcake icon from the browser.

Let me know please if you know of a way to get rid of the cupcake icon in the browser.

Update: Do not try to delete the default profile. If you do you will delete all of your bookmarks and other user related settings. Even worse, a new default profile is generated right afterwards.

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Comments

  1. dan komis said on April 19, 2020 at 3:13 am
    Reply

    how do i get those cupcake, hamburger icons onto other chromium based browsers like 360?

  2. secuda said on November 8, 2012 at 12:53 pm
    Reply

    Though it was some kind of virus attack when i saw a cupcake next to my hotmail and later i was trying to logon my internet provider homepage and it changed its name… silly and confusing. last it changed youtube. like i say not sure if just being silly or if i have being attacke by anti cupcake users.

  3. Mark Worthen said on April 13, 2012 at 4:48 pm
    Reply

    As I’m sure you know, Chrome updates since the time of this post have made the icon editable. You left-click on it and then click Edit.

    My issue is that the current default icon looks like a creeper alien! Not an improvement over the silly cupcake IMHO. But since you can change the icon I guess it’s really not a big deal.

  4. alex said on August 4, 2011 at 11:06 am
    Reply

    I got excited when I saw your comment, installed 95396 and it seems to be back!
    Well, shouldn’t be too long before it goes permanently, hopefully.

  5. LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder said on August 4, 2011 at 10:56 am
    Reply

    Profile icons now not appearing in tab bar in Chromium 15.0.844.0 (95391).

  6. LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder said on July 27, 2011 at 7:49 am
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    Latest Chromium 14.0.836.0 (94142) has ditched the cupcake & in fact all the profile icons from tab bar.Great to see it’s back to how it should be,clean & minimalist.

    1. alex said on August 1, 2011 at 7:58 pm
      Reply

      That’s strange, I am using Chromium 94905 and there is an icon on my tab bar. How to get rid of it?

      1. LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder said on August 1, 2011 at 8:19 pm
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        Yeah,just downloaded 94914 & it’s reappeared.Doesn’t seem to be an option to disable it in Options or about:flags.

    2. ConservatismIsADelusion said on July 27, 2011 at 9:51 am
      Reply

      Thank goodness for that!

  7. Hans said on July 25, 2011 at 11:11 pm
    Reply

    For those (like me) who deleted their default profile and found all bookmarks deleted and replaced by an empty bookmarks file:
    1. Open Windows Explorer and go to C:\Users\[your_user_name]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
    2. Find the file called Bookmarks
    3. Right click on the file and choose properties
    4. Go to the previous versions tab
    5. Choose an older version and restore.
    6. Delete file “Bookmarks”
    7. Rename Bookmarks.bak to Boomarks
    8. restart Chrome

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on July 25, 2011 at 11:26 pm
      Reply

      Hans, thanks for posting!

  8. moving on said on July 21, 2011 at 5:27 pm
    Reply

    this site might matter to you, but it doesn’t matter to me. moving on

    and good riddance to your new ads masquerading as articles

  9. Jermbo said on July 21, 2011 at 1:14 am
    Reply

    It’s called a dev build for a reason…

  10. Chris said on July 20, 2011 at 2:00 pm
    Reply

    I don’t mind there being user profile pictures for us to use (not that it matters for me since I’m the only user) but it would be nice if they didn’t look so horrid, if there were more choices and if we could select our own. I know it’s a test though and those features will probably be in the final version, but still. Either way, I don’t particularly want a picture anyway.

  11. Dan said on July 20, 2011 at 5:59 am
    Reply

    The briefcase is a lot easier to ignore.

  12. mieses said on July 20, 2011 at 4:56 am
    Reply

    I leave if the cupcake stays.

  13. Erik Tomlinson said on July 19, 2011 at 9:45 pm
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    I’d like to know why in the hell the ‘delete profile’ command doesn’t prompt you. It has “…” after it like the Windows convention for menu items that open a prompt or dialogue box, but I clicked it by accident and Chrome restarted and all my bookmarks were annihilated. FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU….

  14. Dan said on July 19, 2011 at 6:49 pm
    Reply

    According to http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=88878 , this is work in progress and in the release version the icon will be hidden if there’s only one profile.

  15. suolakurkku said on July 19, 2011 at 5:18 pm
    Reply

    I wonder why they made the avatar so big (220px*220px). It looks nasty when scaled down. I replaced the “avatar” with a smaller (24*24px) image, and it look way better.

  16. Sarah said on July 19, 2011 at 4:43 pm
    Reply

    Don’t fret about it, guys. I’m sure Google will give us the option to remove it soon, the feature just came out..relax a little. =)

  17. Keith said on July 19, 2011 at 4:21 pm
    Reply

    I feel comfortable with the icons. I thought they look rather cute and brings up a livelier Google Chrome iconically, instead of just depending on Chrome themes for appearance ^^,

  18. Chromium Sucks said on July 19, 2011 at 4:14 pm
    Reply

    This was in Chromium since last week. Deal with it or switch to a superior browser like Firefox 8.0.

  19. suolakurkku said on July 19, 2011 at 1:59 pm
    Reply

    Maybe find out where in the chrome’s resources the cupcake is stored, and replace it with a blank .png or a better image ?

    1. suolakurkku said on July 19, 2011 at 3:09 pm
      Reply

      I’ve managed to replace/remove the icon with resourcehacker. You need to open chrome.dll (in C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\ ) with resourcehacker, collapse bindata, and scroll down for 6165, collapse it and click on the green thing. now you need to click Action->Replace other resource. Click on “Open file with new resource” and pick the image you want. ( i think the cupcake icon was 220×220 PNG ) Now enter these values to the fields below:
      Resource Type : BINDATA
      Resource Name : 6165
      Resource Language : 0
      Then click File -> Save, and you are done.

      1. suolakurkku said on July 19, 2011 at 3:12 pm
        Reply

        Apparently you can’t use “” on comments :(
        here’s the location of the file:
        C:\Users\*Your username*\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\*Build*

  20. TRY said on July 19, 2011 at 1:44 pm
    Reply

    Yes I’m sure I saw this Cupcake icon in Chromium latest builds.

  21. Dan said on July 19, 2011 at 12:50 pm
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    I don’t see the cupcake yet. Is it in Canary or Beta? I hope it won’t show up in Chromium or else I might start looking for another webkit browser.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on July 19, 2011 at 1:38 pm
      Reply

      It is showing up in Canary and Dev for me, did not check the other versions. I believe that it does not appear in Chromium at all.

      1. LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder said on July 20, 2011 at 8:00 am
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        Yep,it sure is there loud & clear in Chromium 14.0.827.0 (93001)

  22. Helios said on July 19, 2011 at 11:53 am
    Reply

    I totally agree. let me know if you manage to get rid of it.

  23. Phil said on July 19, 2011 at 11:15 am
    Reply

    Yeah Graeme – this has ruined my life for the foreseeable future. Have some compassion!

  24. DrTrunks said on July 19, 2011 at 11:02 am
    Reply

    How about using Iron instead of Chrome?
    http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php
    Its basically a stripped version of Chrome.

  25. graeme said on July 19, 2011 at 10:47 am
    Reply

    Seriously? Its a little picture of a Cup Cake, does it matter?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on July 19, 2011 at 10:51 am
      Reply

      It may not matter to you, but it matters to me. Now move on.

      1. LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder said on July 20, 2011 at 7:57 am
        Reply

        These icons are Godawful to look at on a minimalist sleek browser frame.
        Thankfully,according to Chromium issues it’s temporary:
        (Quote)It’s visible right now for two reasons:
        – to get more exposure / testing for this feature
        – to provide a UI to control profiles until the Options page is implemented

        Once the options page is implemented we’ll switch it to hide by default for people with only one profile.

      2. Martin Brinkmann said on July 20, 2011 at 8:27 am
        Reply

        Great news, thanks for finding out about it.

      3. josh said on July 20, 2011 at 12:20 am
        Reply

        “It may not matter to you, but it matters to me. Now move on.” last time I am visiting this rude site…

      4. Martin Brinkmann said on July 20, 2011 at 8:31 am
        Reply

        I apologize if this came over as rude. I’m just tired of people who cannot accept other people’s opinions. It is fine if you like the cupcake, but you should not judge other people because they do not like it. I see this behavior everywhere on the Internet, gaming sites, Apple-Microsoft-Google-Facebook fans and so on.

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