Google is changing how Chrome handles information entered through Autofill, which should prevent automatically filled details from later appearing as generic autocomplete suggestions.
A new Chromium change enables the kAutofillPreventAutofillFromSavingToAutocomplete feature by default. According to Google’s documentation, fields populated by standard Autofill or Autofill AI will no longer be saved to Chrome’s separate Autocomplete database when you submit a form.
Chrome’s Autofill and Autocomplete systems might sound identical, but they serve slightly different purposes. Autofill handles structured information, such as your name, address, payment details, and other saved profile data. Autocomplete remembers previously entered values for individual form fields and may suggest them again when it encounters a similar field.
Until now, information inserted using Autofill could also be recorded by the Autocomplete system after form submission. This could result in the same information being stored or surfaced through two separate suggestion systems.
With the new behaviour enabled, Chrome will prevent Autofill-generated values from being added to the Autocomplete database. This also applies to fields completed using Google’s newer Autofill AI features.
Google initially described the change simply as preventing Autofill data from being saved to Autocomplete, but a follow-up Chromium commit clarified that the flag is a temporary “kill switch.” The accompanying code comment says it is expected to be removed in Chrome 154, suggesting the new behaviour could become permanent once Google is satisfied with the rollout.
Both Chromium changes were merged into the main branch on July 14, so the improvement should begin appearing in future Chrome builds.
