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I would like to know if there is a keyboard shortcut for switching the search engine in the search bar in Firefox. The current way to do is clicking on the down arrow beside the icon, but I am looking for a quick keyboard shortcut.

Checked the Firefox help, it just has this regarding the switching of search engines in search bar.

I need this, as I need to frequently switch between Google and the internal intranet search engine.

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migrated from webapps.stackexchange.com Sep 15 '12 at 20:05


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3 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted
  1. Click at the icon
  2. Select "Manage Search Engines…"
  3. Select the search engine you want to set a shortcut for
  4. Click on "Edit keyword…"
  5. Give a shortcut, e.g. "g" for Google

Now you can type into the address bar the chosen search shortcut followed by what you like to search. Example: g weather berne.

To switch to the address bar with the keyboard, use the shortcut Ctrl+L. You could also open a new tab (Ctrl+T), because it sets the focus to the address bar automatically.

By the way: this works for nearly all search fields on any website. Just right-click on a search field and select "Add a keyword for this search…" (don't know the actual English translation). Instead of adding this search to the search widget, Firefox saves it as a bookmark.

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Perfect.......:) –  mtk Sep 13 '12 at 10:24
The universal 'Add a keyword' is really helpful. Didn't know about it. Thanks –  mtk Sep 13 '12 at 11:46
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There is a shortcut for exactly this task: from the search bar, press control + Down(Next)/Up(Previous).

Source - Shortcuts for firefox in lifehacker.com: http://lifehacker.com/139495/hack-attack-mouse+less-firefox

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You can use Ctrl+K or Ctrl+E to focus on the search bar and then use Ctrl+/ as per Akronix's answer.

Unor's method in conjunction with Ctrl+L is of course a lot faster for everyday use.

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