The omnibar

One field for addresses, searches, tabs, history, and bookmarks

There is no permanent address bar. You summon one field, type, and it works out whether you meant a site, a search, or a tab you already have open.

It also learns what you call your sites. Type gmail and it knows you mean mail.google.com, because you go there constantly and the page title says Gmail.

The omnibar open over a page, matching open tabs, history, and bookmarks — One field. It matches what you have open, what you have visited, and what you saved.

Things to try

about 6 minutes

01Open the omnibar three different ways.⌃Space⌘K⌘LSame field every time. ⌘L is the habit you already have, ⌘K is the one from every other tool you use.
02Type a few letters of a site you visit often and stop.Open tabs, history, and bookmarks all match at once, so the omnibar doubles as a tab switcher.
03Type a nickname rather than a domain: gmail, cal, hn.Sites you visit often are recognized by name. With Apple Intelligence naming on, your Mac names a site once, locally, the first time it becomes a regular.
04Type until only one site can be meant, then wait a beat before pressing Return.The page starts loading before you commit. It never prefetches from an incognito or container tab, and never for a page you already have open.
05Press Return with a modifier held.⇧Return⌘ReturnShift opens the result in a new tab, Command opens it as a second pane beside what you are on.
06Switch to another app entirely, then summon the omnibar from there.⌥SpaceBrowser comes forward with the field already open. The hotkey is configurable, or off, in Settings, General.
07Search for something that means a destination rather than a question. Try download slack.Your search results stay exactly where they are and the resolved destination opens beside them, scrolled to and pulsing on the thing you came for. Close that pane and Fast Forward stops guessing that query.
08Now search for something that is a question: is slack down.No second pane. It only acts when the query names a place.

Worth filming

Fast Forward is the demo. Show the wrong guess too, and closing the pane. The point is that the left pane is always the thing you actually asked for, so a bad guess costs a pane, never an outcome.

Settings panes behind this chapter: General.