Bangs#
Bangs are !shortcuts you type in the search box to send a query straight to
another site or to a different Searpa tab. Searpa understands the widely-used
DuckDuckGo-style bang vocabulary, thousands of sites, plus a few of its own.
The bang definitions come from Kagi’s open-source bangs
repository, the same community-maintained
!bang list Kagi publishes. Self-hosters refresh it with make bangs, see
Maintenance.
A bang can sit anywhere in the query, the rest of the text is the search terms.
Site bangs#
Prefix a query with a site’s bang to search that site directly:
| You type | Goes to |
|---|---|
!w einstein | Wikipedia article search for “einstein” |
!gh hugo | GitHub search for “hugo” |
!yt lofi | YouTube search for “lofi” |
!a headphones | Amazon search |
There are thousands of these. If a bang isn’t recognised, Searpa just treats it as part of your normal query.
Tab bangs#
A handful of bangs jump to one of Searpa’s own tabs instead of leaving the site:
| Bang(s) | Tab |
|---|---|
!web | Web |
!images, !i | Images |
!news, !n | News |
!videos, !v | Videos |
!maps, !m | Maps |
!translate | Translate |
For example, !i golden retriever runs an image search without touching the
tabs by hand.
The “lucky” bang#
A bare ! on its own (for example ! best espresso machine) is the lucky
bang, it takes you to the top result for your query.
Custom bangs#
You can define your own bangs under Settings → Bangs. Give each one a trigger and a URL template, and it works just like the built-in ones. Custom bangs are stored against your account, so they follow you across devices.