Google Chrome’s Omnibox (address bar) search is getting fancy and powerful. A new experimental Chrome flag added to the Chromium repository talks about adding @history, @settings, and @bookmarks search keywords.

Omnibox Site Search Starter Pack

Before we get started, I haven’t tested this flag yet. Hence, I am writing this with 95% confidence instead of 100%.

Here is the new experimental flag that I spotted today:

Omnibox Site Search Starter Pack: Enables @history, @bookmarks, and @settings scopes in Omnibox Site Search/Keyword Mode.

Now that you know the flag name and description, do you agree with my assumption?

At present, Omnibox can search history and bookmarks. However, with the new @ tags, the search becomes powerful and focused. So, for example, you can search your history or bookmarks without going into chrome://history or chrome://bookmarks.

I am waiting to test this feature out and will update this article as soon as it is working. For now, I have the related flags enabled:

What do you think? Does this sound like a useful feature or a gimmick? I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Drop me a comment in the comment box below.

Source: Chromium Gerrit and Chromium Bugs.