First Run Customizations

Chromium can be customized to perform certain behaviors during its first run. The key to it is a special file named initial_preferences (or master_preferences in older Chromium versions) that must exist before chrome first run in the same folder as the chrome.exe binary.

The initial_preferences file is a text file of JSON format, which needs to contain some specific name/value pairs. A prototypical file is shown here (for a more exhaustive list consult the source code directly):

{
  "homepage" : "http://www.chromium.org",
  "homepage_is_newtabpage" : false,
  "distribution": {
    "create_all_shortcuts": true,
    "import_history": false,
    "import_bookmarks": false,
    "import_home_page": false,
    "import_search_engine": false,
    "do_not_launch_chrome": false
  },
  "first_run_tabs": [
    "http://example.com",
    "http://new_tab_page"
  ]
}

There is one dictionary, called distribution and one list, called first_run_tabs. Setting the home page behavior is done outside of these.

The home page settings control the following behaviors:

• homepage: when set, this is the URL opened as the home page (see setting below.)
• homepage_is_newtabpage: if set to false, clicking the 'home' button or taking actions that send the user 'home' will open the home page instead of the new tab page.

The distribution dictionary controls the following behaviors:

• create_all_shortcuts: if set to true, the desktop, quick-launch and start menu shortcuts are created without user intervention.
• import_history: if set to true it automatically imports the browser history from the current default browser.
• import_bookmarks: if set to true it automatically imports the user's bookmarks from the current default browser.
• import_home_page: if set to true it automatically imports the user's home page from the current default browser.
• import_search_engine: if set to true it automatically imports the user's search engine setting from the current default browser.
• do_not_launch_chrome: if set to true, per-user Chromium will not automatically launch after it is installed (per-machine Chromium never auto-launches after install).

The first_run_tabs list controls the set of urls that are displayed in chromium when first run. If you want the default behavior the entire section can be removed. Each entry can be a standard url or you can use these special names to display special tabs:

• "http://new_tab_page" : shows the new tab page. Which contains the thumbnails of the favorite pages.