searxng/docs/user/search_syntax.rst

Search syntax

SearXNG allows you to modify the default categories, engines and search language via the search query.

Prefix !

to set Category/engine

Prefix: :

to set language

Abbrevations of the engines and languages are also accepted. Engine/category modifiers are chainable and inclusive (e.g. with !it !ddg !wp qwer <?q=%21it%20%21ddg%20%21wp%20qwer> search in IT category and duckduckgo and wikipedia for qwer).

See the /preferences page <preferences> for the list of engines, categories and languages.

Examples

Search in wikipedia for qwer:

• !wp qwer <?q=%21wp%20qwer> or
• !wikipedia qwer :search:<?q=%21wikipedia%20qwer>

Image search:

• !images Cthulhu <?q=%21images%20Cthulhu>

Custom language in wikipedia:

• :hu !wp hackerspace <?q=%3Ahu%20%21wp%20hackerspace>

Multilingual Search

SearXNG does not support true multilingual search. You have to use the language prefix in your search query when searching in a different language.

But there is a workaround: By adding a new search engine with a different language, SearXNG will search in your default and other language.

Example configuration in settings.yml for a German and English speaker:

search:
    language : "de"
    ...

engines:
  - name : google english
    engine : google
    language : english
    ...

When searching, the default google engine will return German results and "google english" will return English results.