RIP Chrome Custom Search Engines
Mar 22 2025
For at least a decade I've been using a productivity hack that I thought I was ingenious for discovering. Chrome allows 'Custom Search Engines', allowing you to open a website search page using a keyword and a search string - e.g. if your workflow system looks like, https://agile-workflow-board.com/stories/34555 then a custom search engine of:
- Shortcut:
agilestories - URL:
https://agile-workflow-board.com/stories/%S
will open the link typing agilestories <TAB> 34555 in the search bar.
Pretty handy! But what if you just... ignored the search functionality used it as a link?
- Shortcut: mylink
- URL: https://my-long-url.com
Well, then you'd have a set of universal persistant one word shortcut links synched to your chrome identity! And I have... a lot
I even had a custom search engine link to the 'Custom Search Engines' interface, I used it that much.
Well as of last chrome build, that's all been removed. Links without %S won't work! I had thought losing my smart little hack was my own personal 💔, but looks like plenty of people were using the functionality in this way.
If I had to guess, i would say this is a bug fix that has been in the Chrome backlog for an actual lifetime, and people like myself have been using it as an undocumented feature.
It makes me think - however ingeniously you design, how rigorously you test - there is no replicating the ingenuity of the multitudes of users in breaking - or just enthusiastically using - your product.