Windows – How to reset Chrome’s search engines to default

google-chromewindows

I accidentally deleted Google as the default search engine from Chrome. This also caused the "Search Google for this image" item in the context menu of images to disappear.

I tried to add it back by adding a search engine with these settings, which I copied from another machine:

Name: Google
Keyword: google.com
URL: {google:baseURL}search?q=%s&{google:RLZ}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}{google:assistedQueryStats}{google:searchFieldtrialParameter}{google:searchClient}{google:sourceId}{google:instantExtendedEnabledParameter}{google:omniboxStartMarginParameter}ie={inputEncoding}

Unfortunately this does not bring back the "Search Google for this image" menu item, so there must be more to this entry than just Name, Keyword and URL.

I don't mind deleting all search engines and resetting the list to its default state, but how can I do this?

Best Answer

A way I found is:

  • Locate the folder where the Chrome profiles reside, it's %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\ with a subdirectory for the default profile named Default.
  • Create a new Chrome profile (or access a backup of your Chrome profile)
  • Exit Chrome
  • Copy the file Web Data from the new or backup profile to the default profile
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