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GUIDE / 03

Address bar shortcuts for the pages you use every day.

Get to a page by typing a word you chose, not by hunting through tabs, history and bookmarks. The same word opens the same page, every time.

Some pages you open ten times a day: the payroll portal, a shared drive folder, the team's board. Each one sits at the end of a long address, a few clicks deep in the bookmarks. This guide gives them short names you can type.

Short answer. On the page, click Wyrd's icon and save a word such as payroll. From then on, type > payroll in the address bar and press Enter.

Which one to use

WayA word you choose opens the same page every timeThe same word searches the site tooBuilt into Chrome
Wyrd keyword Recommended
Chrome's autocomplete
Chrome's @bookmarks search

Autocomplete follows your history, so what comes first changes from week to week, and @bookmarks gives you a list to pick from each time. Both are covered in Google's help: searching from the address bar and bookmarks. The rest of this guide is Wyrd's way.

Give the page a keyword

A keyword is a word you choose, saved with one address. It opens that page every time, whatever your history says.

  1. Pin Wyrd: click the Extensions icon (the puzzle piece) at the top right of Chrome, and the pin next to Wyrd.
  2. Open the page you want a shortcut for and click Wyrd's icon. Under Save this page as a keyword, the Address is already filled in and a few keywords are suggested.
  3. Pick a suggestion or type your own in Keyword, for example payroll, and click Save.
  4. From now on, click the address bar, type >, press Space, type payroll and press Enter.
Chrome's Extensions menu open, with a pin button next to Wyrd
Pin Wyrd from the Extensions menu so its icon stays in the toolbar.
Wyrd's Save this page as a keyword box over a timesheets page, with payroll typed as the keyword and the page's address filled in
On the page you want, click Wyrd's icon: the address is filled in, and you choose the word.
Chrome's address bar in Wyrd mode with payroll typed, suggesting the timesheets address
Type >, Space and the keyword. Enter opens the page.

Skip the > if you like

Make Wyrd your address bar's search engine, and payroll on its own opens the page. In Wyrd, Settings → Optional setup → Search without the > prefix walks you through it in about a minute; anything that is not a keyword still goes to your usual web search. See search without the prefix.

Choose keywords you will remember

  • Short and obvious to you. hr, wiki and board beat anything clever.
  • More than one name for a page. Save pay with the address @payroll and both words work; see aliases.
  • See them all. Type > /home for your Keywords page, grouped by category. A keyword you mistype says so, lists the closest ones and offers to create it.

If it does not work

  • Typing > and a keyword runs a Google search. Check that Wyrd is installed and switched on in chrome://extensions, and that you pressed Space after the >.
  • Nothing happens in an Incognito window. Chrome runs extensions there only if you allow it: open chrome://extensions, click Details under Wyrd and switch on Allow in Incognito.
  • The keyword opens the wrong page. Type > /home, find the keyword and edit its address.

Next steps

NextSearch a website →