Chrome’s new keyboard shortcuts let you search your tabs, bookmarks, and history
Jockeys of Chrome tabs and hoarders of bookmarks, rejoice: You can now quickly skim through your entire browser mess with a new simple “@” shortcut in the address bar. Available on the latest desktop Chrome version 108, this feature helps simplify tasks like getting to that article tab you know you left open somewhere without having to search the web again.
If you’re anything like me, you might have a bunch of troubleshooting articles saved as bookmarks, but if someone needs help with a specific problem, you just Google it again instead of searching for what you’ve saved. Now you can type “@bookmarks” or just “@”, then hit the space bar and click “Find Bookmarks” and start typing some key terms.
The same can be done for tabs and history. You know one of the 78 open tabs in 12 Chrome windows that free recipe story you held open for the game day party. To find it again, just type “@” and hit the spacebar, then click “Search Tabs” or “Search History”, type “buffalo wings” and you should find it in a jiffy.
The new feature began his public life in September on ChromeOS 106 beta before graduating to become a full feature available to everyone. Google’s blog post also points out an existing Chrome feature you can use that lets you create your own custom site search shortcuts:
Do you have favorite sites that you often search, such as YouTube or Google Drive? You can also activate your own custom site search shortcuts to search them directly from the Chrome address bar on your desktop. Go to “Manage search engines and site search” (chrome://settings/searchEngines) in Chrome settings on desktop and activate them. You can get there quickly using Chrome Actionsby also typing in ‘customize site search’.