Monday, November 14, 2016

Search Google Drive or Chrome Web Store from the Omnibox

Save a few steps when you need to search for something in your Google Drive or on the Chrome Web Store by setting up the Omnibox (that's what the address bar in Chrome is called) to automatically search those places when you type in a special keyword.

Do this by going up to the Omnibox (where the website URL is across the top) and right-clicking in it.  Then choose "Edit Search Engines".


Under your default search engine settings, you'll see an "Other search engines" section.  Look to the right to find the "Add" button.


You can click "Add" to create a new search engine entry.  This works by using a keyword.  Which means, whenever you type that keyword into the Omnibox and then hit the spacebar (or the tab key) - it will be ready for you to type in what you want to search for on that specific website.  You can see below the two things I typed in for Google Drive and for Chrome Web Store.  You can choose a different keyword if you want, but be sure that the URL is exactly the same as what I typed.

Google Drive:  https://drive.google.com/drive/search?q=%s

Chrome Web Store:  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/%s

When you are done with one entry, click "Add".  Then you can repeat the process to add more.


Now, no matter what website I'm currently on, I can go to the Omnibox and type in dr and hit spacebar or tab.  Then it will be ready for me to search Google Drive.  I can do the same thing by typing cws and then hitting spacebar or tab.  Now I can type in what I want to search for in the Chrome Web Store.  It's a beautiful, time-saving thing!


You can do this for most any website - Amazon, YouTube, Bible Gateway, etc.  Just repeat the process we did above.  To get the correct URL, you'll need to search for something on the desired website and copy the URL of the search results.  Then when you paste it into the new search engine entry, replace the word or phrase that you searched for (and anything after it) with %s.

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