By default, Microsoft Edge uses Bing as its default search engine, but if you prefer something else—such as Google or DuckDuckGo—you can change it easily in the Settings menu. Here’s how, whether you’re running Edge on Windows 10, Windows 11, or Mac.
Switch the Default Search Engine in Microsoft Edge
First, open an Edge browser window. To use Google or another search engine as your default in Microsoft’s modern Edge browser, click the menu button (three dots) found in the top-right corner and then select “Settings.”
In the Settings tab, click “Privacy, Search, and Services” in the sidebar. (If you don’t see the sidebar, widen the size of your browser window or click the three-line hamburger button in the top-left corner.)
Scroll down to the very bottom of the right pane and look for the “Services” section. Click “Address Bar and Search.”
From there, locate the “Search engine used in the address bar” section and choose “Google” or whatever search engine you prefer. In addition to Bing and Google, Microsoft Edge also includes Yahoo! and DuckDuckGo by default.
You’re now done. The next time you search from the address bar or by right-clicking text on a web page and selecting the “Search the web” option, Edge will use your chosen search engine.
If you’re happy with your choice, you can close Settings. Otherwise, to manage the list of search engines that appear in the defaults list, click the “Manage Search Engines” option. You’ll see a list of search engines. You can remove them from the list or click the “Add” button and add your own search engine by entering a URL.
Edge will also automatically find search engines when you use them. For example, if you prefer a different search engine, Edge says you should “open a new tab, go to the search engine you’d like to add, and search for something.” It will appear as an option in the list after you’ve used it, assuming the search engine is correctly configured to offer this.
Even after you change your default search engine, the search box on Edge’s New Tab page will remain a Bing search box. You can use the address bar to search with Google or another search engine from Edge’s New Tab page.
Switch the Default Search Engine in Classic Microsoft Edge
If you’re using the legacy version of Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 (which Microsoft now considers obsolete), the instructions on how to change your default browser are different than the steps shown above. Here’s how to do it.
Step One: Get More Search Engines
Microsoft Edge no longer uses search providers you have to install from Microsoft’s website. Instead, when you visit a web page that uses the “OpenSearch” standard to expose its search engine information, Edge notices this and makes a record of the search engine information.
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This is the same way Google Chrome works, too—visit a web page with OpenSearch and Chrome will automatically detect it.
All you need to do is visit the search engine’s website to add that search engine to Edge. If you want to install Google, visit Google’s homepage. For DuckDuckGo, visit DuckDuckGo’s homepage. Once you’ve done so, you can make it the default using the instructions below.
Not every search engine supports OpenSearch yet, but we expect search engines will add support for this very quickly.
Step Two: Change Your Default Search Engine
To change your search provider, click the menu button—that’s the button with three dots at the top-right corner of the Microsoft Edge window. Select “Settings” in the menu.
At the left side of the “Settings” panel, click the “Advanced” option at the bottom of the list.
Scroll down in the Advanced settings panel and you’ll see the “Address bar search” setting. Click the “Change search provider” button.
You’ll see a list of available search providers. Select the search engine you want to use and click or tap “Set as Default”.
If the search engine you want to use doesn’t appear here, be sure you’ve visited the search engine’s homepage first. If you have visited the homepage and it still doesn’t appear, that search engine doesn’t support OpenSearch yet. You may want to contact the search engine and ask it to support OpenSearch so you can use it as your default search engine in Microsoft Edge.
Step Three: Search From the Address Bar or New Tab Page
You can now type a search query into Edge’s address bar and press Enter—it’ll automatically search your default search engine. Edge will even provide suggestions from it in the drop-down box, assuming your search engine supports suggestions and you leave them enabled in Edge’s settings.
This change also affects the “Where to next?” box on the new tab page, giving you a way to easily search your favorite search engine.
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To quickly search with keyboard shortcuts, press Ctrl+t to open a new tab page or Ctrl+L to focus the address bar on the current page and start typing your search.
Unsurprisingly, this option doesn’t affect anything outside Microsoft Edge. When you perform a search from the Start menu or via Cortana and select “Search the web,” Windows will search the web with Bing. Cortana is, after all, “powered by Bing.” The above option only applies to searches you begin from within Microsoft Edge.
As usual, this only modifies a single browser’s settings. If you use Internet Explorer for legacy applications, you’ll need to change its search engine the old-fashioned way. Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers have their own default search options.
