As inspired by Dan's custom-search-engines to document the shortcuts that I use.
By default, Chrome adds custom search engines into your browser automatically but the default keywords they use tend to be too long that you might never trigger these goodies in your daily workflow.
For example, the default keyword to trigger the Wikipedia custom search engine, you have to type udemy.com react. However, by using short, memorable keywords, you can reduce the keystrokes significantly. Using the configuration below, I would just type u react and I would land on the right pages without having to go through google and click on the first result.
I have specified certain entries that you might find useful.
mygitsearches github for my own repo. (change it to your username in the URL to work)gmail,gd,gksearch for entries in your gmail, google drive, google keep accordingly.whrishelps film junkies to find filming locationswhois,whohostmight come in handy when doing a lookup
Ultimately, practice makes perfect! Practice those handy keystrokes regularly. Adding duplicate entries with different keyword length helps if you always forget to trigger those one letter keyword entries.
Chrome settings can also be shortened. In fact, any website can be accessed with this method since the %s query string is not mandatory.
Example:
| Name | Keyword | Url | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome Extensions | e | chrome://extensions/ | |
| Chrome Settings | s | chrome://settings/ |
For full list of chrome urls, navigate to chrome://chrome-urls/
Sadly, Google Chrome doesn't provide a straightforward to import and export all custom search engines like bookmarks.
You might want to consider these extensions:
Otherwise to use the native search engines manager in chrome:
- Go to
chrome://settings/searchEngines - Scroll through to see if the search you want to add is already in there—you might just need to change the keyword
- If it's not there, click "add" and input accordingly
-
Go to your address bar by either
a) clicking it
b) control-L on a PC
c) command-L on a Mac
-
Type the keyword (e.g.
wfor Wikipedia) -
Don't press enter!
-
Press space / tab 1
-
Type in your search query
-
Now press enter
1 : you can do toggle it to space or tab or tab only at chrome://settings/searchEngines
- This list is also applicable for Alfred Web Search functionality. Just replace
%swith{query}. For More Info