/custom-search-engines

Custom search engines for Google Chrome

Google Chrome Custom Search Engines

By Greg Sadetsky (original list by Dan Turkel)

Google Chrome's Custom Search Engine feature allows you to add search shortcuts that can be used directly from the search bar (the "Omnibox") for sites other than your main search engine. These shortcuts work on (almost) any site that offers a search functionality -- be it Wikipedia, Amazon, Google Images, etc.

Example: you can set up a new search engine for Wikipedia that's mapped to the shortcut "w". To search Wikipedia from the Omnibox, you would then only need to type:

  • ⌘ L to focus on the Omnibox (or ctrl L if you're on Windows)
  • w Pokemon (shortcut + space + search term)
  • Enter
Direct access

You can also map shortcuts to access frequently visited sites, such as Google Calendar ("c") or Gmail ("m"). There is no "search" involved in these shortcuts, but they work nevertheless!

Stopping sites from adding their own custom search engines

There is no way (as of now) to configure Google Chrome to stop sites from adding their own search engines (Chrome actually adds some sites on their behalf, without the site "asking" to be added).

If you prefer to maintain a clean list of custom search engines, you can use a Chrome extension to which I've contributed for that!

The Search Engines

Name Keyword Example Url
Amazon amzn https://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=%s
AWS aw aw s3 https://console.aws.amazon.com/%s
Dictionary dict http://www.dictionary.com/browse/%s
eBay ebay https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=%s
Github gh https://github.com/search?q=%s
Gmail search gm https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/%s
Google Drive drive https://drive.google.com/drive/search?q=%s
Google Maps maps https://www.google.com/maps/search/%s/
Google Images img https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=%s
Hacker News hn https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%s
IMDB i http://www.imdb.com/find?q=%s
LinkedIn li https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/index/?keywords=%s
Thesaurus thes http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/%s
Mailinator maili maili myinbox https://www.mailinator.com/v2/inbox.jsp?zone=public&query=%s
Wikipedia English wp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s
YouTube yt https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s
Stack Overflow so http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%s
Yelp ye http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=%s

Search Engines (specific to Canada / Québec)

Name Keyword Example Url
Amazon Canada amznca https://www.amazon.ca/s/?field-keywords=%s
eBay Canada ebayca https://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_nkw=%s
Google CAD to USD cu cu 100 https://www.google.com/search?q=%s+cad+in+usd
Google USD to CAD uc uc 100 https://www.google.com/search?q=%s+usd+in+cad
Linguee en -> fr lenfr https://www.linguee.com/english-french/search?query=%s
Linguee fr -> en lfren https://www.linguee.com/french-english/search?query=%s
Wikipedia French wpfr https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%s
WordReference en -> fr enfr http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/%s
WordReference fr -> en fren http://www.wordreference.com/fren/%s

Direct access shortcuts (i.e., Omnibox shortcuts that aren't search engines)

Name Keyword Url
Gmail m https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox
Google Calendar c https://calendar.google.com/calendar/r

How to Add/Edit Search Engines

  1. Open Chrome
  2. Right click or control click the address bar
  3. Select "Edit Search Engines..."
  4. Scroll through to see if the search engine you want to add is already in there—you might just need to change the keyword
  5. If it's not there, scroll to the top where you can add a new search engine just as you see it here. The "Add" link/button is on the upper right.

How to Use Them

  1. Go to your address bar by either a) clicking it b) typing control-l ("L" as in Lima) on Windows c) typing command-l ("L" as in Lima) on a Mac
  2. Type the keyword (e.g. w for Wikipedia)
  3. Don't press enter!
  4. Press space
  5. Type in your search query
  6. Now press enter