How-To Geek
Enable Inline Completion in the Firefox Address Bar
When you start typing into the address bar in Firefox you normally see a popup menu with all the URLs that your browser knows about. But what if you get tired of hitting the down arrow key every time, and would rather have it complete inline as well?
Type about:config into the address bar, and then filter by the following text:
browser.urlbar.autoFill
Double-click on the value for “browser.urlbar.autoFill” to set it to true. The change should be immediate, no need to reboot Firefox… just start typing a previous URL into the address bar.
I’m still not sure if I prefer this or not, although it does seem to save time in some instances.
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Comments (28)
Programmer by day, geek by night, The Geek, also known as Lowell Heddings, spends all his free time bringing you fresh geekery on a daily basis. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.
- Published 10/21/07
Great tip. I didn’t known this feature had been added to Firefox. I know in previous version of Firefox, you had to download an extension to gain this feature.
That’s cool. Really it’s useful. Firefox is really great browser. I like it.
Thank you geek 4 introducing this fantastic feature.
Good luck.
Looks like it’s not working nice with Kubuntu ;/.
Zambur, it works fine for me in KDE on Ubuntu. Not that this isn’t Kubuntu per se, but it should be the same. What theme are you running?
Does anyone know how to DISABLE this on Safari? It’s constantly mis-completing my URLs!
Is there a way to manage which URLs show up in the autocomplete?
This did not work for me. Must be some conflict with an extension.
Good info. Thanks!
Excellent – something I’ve always missed from Safari.
Thanks. Now I can turn this wretched nonsense off. I like the suggestions, but I don’t want them to be chosen unless I choose them actively.
This Will Not Disable, Even After Restart Of Firefox, Pc, Logging In And Out, Anything, IT Works Initially, But It Won’t Stick… Any Help Would Be Appreciated… It’s Annoying, Haha
oh thank you. i’ve been spoiled by Safari’s doing this for years and Firefox’s apparent inability to do it been the single biggest reason my every attempt to adopt Firefox has ended in my going back to Safari. maybe now i’ll be able to pick a web browser and stick with it for a while.
now my question is: which about:config pref turns on Safari-like smart cut-and-paste? i’m sick of having to fix every cut and paste – adding and deleting erroneous spaces and punctuation marks and so on – after i do it. surely no one can speak in defense of *that*…
Like MitchMan, it didn’t work for me. And my copy of FF3 has no extensions. Arg!
setting maxRichResults to 0 still results in 1 result
awsome works great now firefox is definitely the best browser
AWESOME! firefox is now my permanent browser on mac (:
How could you not prefer this? You are the man for illuminating me. I only discovered how much I liked this feature when I switched to Safari briefly.
The only problem with this is that it disables the “keywords” feature of bookmarks. eg. I have it set to open gmail when i type “gm” and enter. Firefox could easily have both enabled at once, and simply give preference to the keywords.
This does not work for me.
Set Value to True
restart Firefox
AutoFill still not working
Any ideas?
im trying to go to facebook.com using inline autocomplete HOWEVER this ONLY works for me if I start typing http://
so http://facebook.com or http://www.facebook.com will show up in url autocomplete
typing facebook.com only produces a drop down menu
FF (FireFox) version 3.6
1) about:config
2) browser.urlbar.autoFill
3) True
ive even closed & restarted the browser
I have a problem related to pj’s (person above me). I would like it to open Google Agenda by just typing ‘Agenda’, so that it autofills the first link below it. But I have to type ‘www.google.com/calendar’ to open it. Even google.com/calendar won’t do, it will need the www. or http://.
Anyone who knows what to do here? I’ve been searching for 1,5 hours now. Still no success.
Thanks in advance!
@Julius
You need to delete addresses starting with “WWW” from bookmarks.
See here: http://lifehacker.com/#!5255876/force-firefox-autofill-to-behave-by-removing-www-bookmarks
Not working for me at all, even when I type starting with http or www.
Still have to use dropdown I guess.
Try https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/prospector-speak-words/
Fajiv, thank you. IT works almost exactly how I want.
The auto.Fill approach has a nasty bug since version 7 – if it’s enabled, and you type “h” it will be replaced automatically with “f” – thus, searching your history for “honda” for example becomes “fonda” …
Already told Mozilla about it, but they don’t seem to care about me wanting inline auto-complete.
Absolutely does not work with the latest version of firefox.