Use This Shortcut to Search Your Chrome Tabs, Bookmarks, and History

If you’re like me, trying to find a single Chrome tab amongst dozens of open sites is damn near impossible. I end up searching Google for the site I was looking for, and then adding a duplicate tab to the ever-growing pile. Searching for bookmarks and through your history isn’t perfect, either — both require you to go to their respective pages first, then searching for what you like.

Google, of course, is no stranger to search. The company started as a search engine, after all, so it knows a thing or two about finding things. It’s not surprising, therefore, that Google has figured out a better way to search for tabs, bookmarks, and history in Chrome, creating shortcuts for searching for each.

As reported by 9to5Google, Google added this helpful new search feature to version 108 of Chrome. Instead of digging through your tabs, bookmarks, and browsing history by hand, use an ampersand (@) instead. You can use @+the relevant query to quickly find what you’re looking for.

To start, click on Chrome’s address bar, then type @tabs, @bookmarks, or @history. Now, press the space bar, or click on the “Search Tabs,” “Search Bookmarks,” or “Search History” pill that appears. Then start typing what you’re looking for.

For example, jumping into @tabs, I can type “Inbox” to find my open Gmail tab (Gmail, itself, doesn’t work, surprisingly). With @bookmarks, I can type “Lifehacker” to find any of our sites I saved to my bookmarks over the years. Finally, @history lets me find a site I was using for a previous article, like this PetaPixel post I reference in my piece on how point-and-shoot cameras are making a comeback.

It’s a small but useful change that should make navigating Chrome even easier. Version 108 seems to be about adding these types of helpful updates. Last week, I highlighted a new “Energy Saver” feature that lets you conserve battery life while using Chrome on a laptop. Now you can save battery and time, so you can get more work done (or squeeze an extra YouTube video into your lunch break).