Google Chrome Has New Search Bar Filters

Chrome’s address bar is already feature-packed, with the ability to search for pages, history items, bookmarks, data from extensions, and much more. Google is now making it easier to filter results with special shortcuts.

You can already search your bookmarks, tabs, and history by typing the name in the address bar, but they are displayed alongside results from the web and other places. Chrome is now introducing search shortcuts to narrow down the results — if you type @bookmarks before your search, only bookmark results will be listed.

The same method also works for @history for searching the browser history, an @tabs for searching open tabs. You can also just search for tabs by clicking the arrow button at the top-right of any Chrome window.

The filters have been in development for a few months, and could already be activated using a feature flag, but Google says they are now rolling out to everyone. If you don’t want to wait, just open chrome://flags/#organic-repeatable-queries in your browser (paste the link into the address bar), set the highlighted dropdown menu to “Enabled,” and restart Chrome when asked.

Google also started rolling out Chrome 108 last week, which adds an energy saver mode, improved emoji and fonts, and more features. Chromebooks are receiving Chrome OS 108, with everything in the browser’s update, as well as improved Wi-Fi connections and a trash folder.