How I use Google Chrome custom search engines for quick access

Posted: - Modified: | geek, productivity, tips

I move as much as I can of what I know to the Web so that other people can use what I share. Added benefit: I can find things quickly! I use custom search engine shortcuts to help me quickly look up stuff. For example, I frequently refer to blog posts. I can type “b search terms” into my Chrome address bar to search my blog. Neat, huh? Here are the search engines I've defined.

Blog b https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Asachachua.com+%s
Blog category bc https://sachachua.com/blog/category/%s
Blog tag bt https://sachachua.com/blog/tag/%s
Flickr – mine f http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=65214961@N00&q=%s
Flickr tag ft ~http://flickr.com/photos/sachac/tags/%25s
Google Drive d https://drive.google.com/a/sachachua.com/#search/%s
Google Calendar c https://www.google.com/calendar/render?q=TERM
GMail m https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#search/%s
Google Contacts p https://www.google.com/contacts/?q=%s
Trello t https://trello.com/search?q=%s

Here's how you can define your own search engines:

  1. Click on the menu button.
  2. Choose Settings > Manage Search Engines.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the Other search engines list.
  4. Add your own, one at a time.

%s will be replaced by the search terms from the command line.

Super handy!

Try setting up search engines for yourself. It takes a few minutes to set up one, and it makes searching so much easier.

You can comment with Disqus or you can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.