- Google Chrome for Android is starting to roll out support for predictive back navigation.
- This lets users see whether a back navigation swipe will exit the app and take them to the home screen.
- Predictive back support is enabled by default for users on Android 15 running Chrome Canary but will trickle down to other channels in the near future.
In order for the system to do this, though, it needs to know when the next activity in the operating system’s so-called “back stack” is the home screen. For apps that leave back handling up to the system, this isn’t a problem, but apps with custom back behavior need to add support for the predictive back gesture. That’s why when Google initially introduced predictive back gesture support in Android 13, it made the system opt-in via a toggle in Developer Options. This decision was made not only to give developers time to refactor how their apps handle the back button but also to give Google the opportunity to update its own libraries to support the feature.
Finally, though, the time has come for Google to flip the switch and enable the predictive back gesture system by default. With the release of Android 15 Beta 2 back in May, predictive back is enabled by default and can no longer be toggled by the user under Developer Options. In preparation for the stable rollout of Android 15 later this year, the Google Chrome team has also flipped the switch to enable support for the feature in the Android app. This currently takes the form of showing a preview of the home screen when the user’s back gesture will take them to the home screen as well as showing a preview of the previous page when the user is navigating through Chrome’s settings, bookmarks, downloads, or history.
Chrome’s support for predictive back does not, unfortunately, include showing a preview of the last web page you visited, though this is something that Google said it is prototyping. The flag to enable the back-to-home animation in Google Chrome is now enabled by default in Canary builds for Android and will be rolling out to other Chrome channels soon. If you’re not running Android 15, then you can still take advantage of this feature by enabling the “predictive back animations” toggle in Developer Options, as long as your device is on Android 13 or Android 14.
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