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I have to admit, I never thought that I'd see the day I preferred a different desktop browser to Chrome. But with the latest release of Safari, I'm a believer. It (to me) performs faster, looks better, and having that baked-in sync functionality with all my iOS devices and other Macs is... well, insanely great.

That being said, there are a few features that I miss from Chrome, but the one that I really miss is the multiple search engines you could invoke from typing the name of them and then either Space or Tab (e.g., type "imdb" and then Tab to search using IMDb's search query functionality).

Is there some sort of less-advertised extension that I can get to bestow this upon Safari, or am I out of luck?

Chrome's convenient search engine feature

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4 Answers 4

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Try SafariKeywordSearch. It allows you to set up custom searches triggered by keywords preceding searches. For example, I have it set so that goto Ask Different uses Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" to send me to the first Google result for "Ask Different".

There's a good set of built-in defaults, and it's pretty easy to add almost any site-specific search out there, by making a small edit to the URL. There are instructions on the site.

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  • Excellent, thank you! It doesn't behave quite as well as Chrome's equivalent, but it gets the job done! Much appreciated.
    – Terrance Shaw
    Commented Oct 21, 2012 at 23:01
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    You're welcome. I make use of it a lot. One tip, I've found that using I'm feeling lucky combine with the "site:example.com" parameter in Google often yields better results than using a site's own search engine.
    – robmathers
    Commented Oct 21, 2012 at 23:03
  • It still works for Safari 7.0.4 and Mavericks 10.9.3.
    – yurkennis
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 4:46
  • And as well with Yosemite 10.10 and Safari 8.0
    – Ichixgo
    Commented Oct 22, 2014 at 13:43
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There is also Safari Omnikey, which has a dedicated toolbar button and which I found easier to use:

Safari Omnikey

Chrome-like keyword search for Safari browser. Search Amazon, Wikipedia or any other site directly from your URL bar.

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Also, pull down the Safari menu, after "About Safari" is a direct link to Apple's extensions page. There are several that allow for different or multiple search engines. If nothing there you like, Google is, in this case, your friend.

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  • This is true. I like robmathers' solution out of all the ones I was able to find (including the ones from Apple's page), as I was able to more easily configure custom search engines.
    – Terrance Shaw
    Commented Oct 22, 2012 at 22:38
  • I've found Apple neglects their Extensions (and Dashboard Widgets) pages, unfortunately. Lots of 404s, infrequent culling of dead projects, and no built-in search. I agree @robmathers' answer hits the nail on the head, and particularly beats telling folks to Google it.
    – duozmo
    Commented Oct 8, 2013 at 22:24
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Searching on a page (eg: en.wikipedia.org) the first time adds this to the dropdown suggestions. In this case for example as

search on en.wikipedia.org for "your search key"

when you enter

en.wiki your search key

For apple.stackexchange.com the prepended word apple to the search key might be sufficient. For me it works on iOS and Yosemite.

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