Whenever I set up a new browser, I always have to copy over the custom search engines (at chrome://settings/searchEngines) because for some reason, Import/Export User Settings doesn’t include these. There are ways to import and export these from the filesystem in an internal sqlite database that Chrom{e,ium} uses, but it’s not guaranteed to work in the future.
The “Shortcut” works by typing the it in the browser’s address bar (such as :w for Wikipedia), followed by a space, then your search query. The choices for “Shortcut"s are just my personal preferences. Use whatever you can remember, and you don’t need to prefix them with a colon; once again, that’s just my preference. This document is mostly for my personal reference.
| Search engine | Shortcut | URL with %s in place of query |
|---|---|---|
Wikipedia (en) | :w | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=%s |
Wiktionary (en) | :d | https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=%s |
I'm Feeling Lucky | ! | https://duckduckgo.com/?hps=1&q=%5C%s&ia=web |
YouTube | :yt | https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s&page={startPage?}&utm_source=opensearch |
cppreference | :cxx | https://en.cppreference.com/mwiki/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=%s |
Python3 docs | :py | https://docs.python.org/3/search.html?q=%s |
Java JDK docs | :jdk | https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/21/docs/api/search.html?q=%s |
Github Code Search | :gh | https://github.com/search?q=%s&type=code |
NixOS packages | :nixpkgs | https://search.nixos.org/packages?query=%s |
NixOS wiki | :nixwiki | https://nixos.wiki/index.php?search=%s |
ArchWiki | :arch | https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Special:Search?search=%s |
ports.macports.org | :ports | https://ports.macports.org/search?q=%s&name=on |
Alpine packages | :alpine | https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages?name=%s&branch=edge&repo=&arch=&maintainer= |
Docker Hub | :dockerhub | https://hub.docker.com/search?q=%s |
X (Twitter) | :x | https://twitter.com/search?q=%s |
Yahoo! Finance | :yf | https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%s?&.tsrc=fin-srch |
Crates.io | :crates | https://crates.io/search?q=%s |
Docs.rs | :docsrs | https://docs.rs/releases/search?query=%s |
Rust std docs | :ruststd | https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/?search=%s |
CMake docs | :cmake | https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/search.html?q=%s |
Debian packages | :deb | https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=%s&searchon=names&suite=bookworm§ion=all |
Perplexity.ai | :px | https://www.perplexity.ai/search?s=o&q=%s |
Bing | :b | https://www.bing.com/search?q=%s |
Kubernetes Docs | :k8s | https://kubernetes.io/search/?q=%s |