Everything You Can Do From Google Chrome's Address Bar (Besides Run Searches)

Chrome's omnibox is not just for typing out URLs or searching Google. Use it to take notes, write emails, and chat with Gemini. - www.wired.com

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It tends to really be used only by developers, but the address bar and search box up at the top of the Google Chrome interface has an official name: the omnibox. It reflects the multipurpose capabilities of this little text field, as it's able to do much more than look up web addresses and run searches on Google. When you know about everything the omnibox can do, you can save time jumping between different apps and sites, and get things done more quickly.

What's more, Google is constantly adding new features to the omnibox. Most recently, as you might expect, the company added an integration with Gemini AI. Here are a few of our favorites—just remove the quotes around the text examples below to get the code you need to type into the omnibox.



Chat With Gemini We've just mentioned the most recent upgrade to the Chrome omnibox, so we may as well start here: Type out "@gemini" in the address bar, then a space, then your prompt for the chatbot. Hit Enter, and the query will be run in Google Gemini. Chrome will use whatever flavor of Gemini is included with your Google account (so Gemini Advanced, if you're a paying user).

Carry Out Conversions Any kind of conversion you need, the all-powerful omnibox can take care of for you: Turn kilometers into miles, or dollars into euros, or days into months. All you have to do is type out the desired conversion in a way that makes sense. Chrome is pretty good at working out what you're trying to do, so for example, you can type "£34 in us dollars" and it will know you're looking for a conversion.

You should immediately see the result appear underneath—you don't need to hit Enter. Run Basic Calculations On a..

. David Nield.