How to add Gmail as a search engine in Chrome-based browsers

Jack Wallen shows you how to create a handy search engine so you can search your Gmail inbox from within the Chrome address bar.

I rely heavily on Gmail and am frequently having to search through my inbox for various missives. Fortunately, Gmail has a very powerful search tool that makes it possible to search through even a staggeringly large inbox with ease.

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Sometimes, however, I don’t want to have to open Gmail to search for something. When I need a bit more efficiency in my workflow, I can count on Chrome’s ability to add custom search engines. Once you’ve added a search engine to Chrome, it’s just a matter of typing a keyword in the address bar and hitting the Tab key on your keyboard to then search the target.

What you’ll need to add a Gmail search engine in Chrome

This feature works in Chrome. I’ve tested it out in some of the Chrome-based browsers, only to find it doesn’t work as expected. I’ll demonstrate with Chrome on Pop!_OS Linux, but this feature works, regardless of the operating system.

How to add Gmail as a search engine

Open your browser and then open the Settings window. From there, locate the Search Engine section and click Manage Search Engines And Site Searches (Figure A).

Figure A

In the resulting window (Figure B), you’ll see all of the default Search Engines listed.

Figure B

Below that, you’ll see the Site Search section, which will list all of the custom search engines you’ve added. Click Add. In the next window (Figure C), here’s what you need to paste into the settings.

After configuring the new Search Engine, click Save to dismiss the window. Your new Gmail Search Engine has been added.

How to use the new Gmail Search Engine

Open a new tab and type “gmail” in the address bar followed by a space. Type the search query you want to run in Gmail and hit Enter on your keyboard. This will open the tab in Gmail with the results of your search.

One thing to know is that you don’t have to use the default Google search engine for this to work. I tested the feature with DuckDuckGo listed as my default search engine and all worked exactly as expected.

And that, my wonderful friends, is all there is to set up Chrome with a more efficient means of searching through your Gmail account.

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