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Cover image for How to Google with a Shortcut
Zack Webster
Zack Webster

Posted on • Originally published at Medium

How to Google with a Shortcut

Being a software developer, I have to google quite a few things. And when it comes to doing that, here's what the usual flow looks like for most of us: Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V in the address bar of your browser, and that's if you use shortcuts and a browser that lets you search via the address bar. If you don't have your browser already open then that's one more step to the task. Not to mention the switching if you are on some other application.
What if there was a way to just select a part of any text in any application and have it looked up for you in your default browser with a shortcut combo? That would save so many clicks and make searching more accessible. Apparently, such a future is not built into Windows natively. Let's hope they add it in the near future but for now, I do have something for you.

Here's what you need toΒ do…

  • Download and install AutoHotKey
  • Clone or download my script from GitHub.
  • Extract google-it.ahk file from downloaded ZIP to your desktop.
  • Double-click on this file and you are all set! You can now press Ctrl + LWin (Left Windows Key) after selecting any text to open it in Google search.

More about theΒ script…

Like any other AutoHotKey script, you can customize mine to your own liking: changing the shortcut keys, browser, search engine, website, etc. With a little bit of tinkering, you can set the script to run on startup.
This was a fun little experiment out of curiosity that turned out to be very productive and something I now use often. Cheers!

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