How can I share my Google Chrome search engine entries?

Question

I have created some search entries in Google Chrome using 'Edit search engines'.

How can I share some of these entries with my colleagues?

Answer 1

As of now, no you cannot. However, you can share bookmarks with your colleagues.

Link to Google Bookmark sharing as of now, Google App users are not able to share bookmarks, or lists of bookmarks.

Answer 2

It's possible, but it's enough of a pain that you won't want to.

1. Find the Web Data file in your Chrome profile. In Windows 7 it will be here: "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Web Data"

2. Open the file with an SQLite program like SQLite Studio or sqlite in Ubuntu (sudo apt-get install sqlite) and export the keywords table in SQLite Studio or run this command in Linux: sqlite3 "Web Data" ".dump keywords" > keywords.sql

3. Have your colleagues import the keywords, doing the reverse of this process.

Like I said, possible, but painful.

I wrote a Javascript parser to convert the SQL from Web Data into the nearly universal Netscape Bookmark File Format in HTML (ironic that the definitive standard for that format seems to be Microsoft) if you're interested in getting the keywords into other browsers like Firefox or Opera.

If you're interested in an alternative solution, I created Shortmarks to allow you to use the same set of custom search engines in any browser, and I plan to implement the ability to share with others soon. The upcoming release in a few days will have the import code I mentioned above as soon as I'm finished testing the new features.