Google just posted a great new keyboard shortcut that you can use to narrow your searches, and while it won’t save you a week of time, it’s easier to use than scrolling back to the search bar, clicking on it, and editing your search to start a new search.
The shortcut is simple and easy to remember: when you are on the results page for a Google search, all you have to do is enter the key on your keyboard – a forward slash, if you’re still confused the other slash on your keyboard – and your cursor will jump back to the search box, placing itself at the very end of your search. You can then add or subtract words, add operators, or do a quick one CTRL + A and delete to start over.
This trick does not work when you first load google.com, because you don’t have to; once you load the page, your cursor will be ready in the search box, so you can type whatever you want. But if you’re running multiple searches to dig for something, this is a faster way to narrow your search until you find what you came for.
And while we’re at it, let’s give you a few more shortcuts to speed up your searches. Since you can use your browser’s address bar to start all your Google searches instead of going to Google’s website, all you have to do is stomp CTRL + E or CTRL + K when you want to search for something on the internet. If you are not on a website that has already adopted either shortcut for another purpose (such as adding a hyperlink to the text of a blog post, for example), your cursor will immediately jump to an empty address bar for you to do this . start your search.
I have tested this in Chrome, Edge Chromium and Firefox, and it works fine. However, if you are a Safari fan, you must mash Command + LThat’s exactly the way it is on macOS. If you mash CTRL + L (or ALT + D) in Chrome, Edge Chromium, or Firefox, jump to your address bar and highlight everything there – a slightly different setup than clearing everything to perform a new search.
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