How to change the default search engine in Microsoft Edge

The fast route

Paste edge://settings/search into Edge's address bar, press Enter, and set Search engine used in the address bar. Then, on the same screen, change the setting for what search on new tabs uses from the search box to the Address bar — without that second change, the box on Edge's new-tab page keeps sending queries to Bing.

These paths describe Microsoft Edge on desktop as of August 2026. Edge is built on Chromium, so the settings resemble Chrome's, but Microsoft files them in a different place and adds the new-tab distinction that catches people out.

Edge on Windows, macOS and Linux

1. Click the three-dot menu at the top right — it is labelled Settings and more.
2. Choose Settings.
3. In the left sidebar, click Privacy, search, and services.
4. Scroll to the bottom of that page, to the group headed Address bar and search, and click into it. Some builds route this through an intermediate Search and connected services entry first, which is the path Microsoft's own documentation describes; either way the destination is the same page.
5. Set the dropdown Search engine used in the address bar to the engine you want.
6. On the same screen, set the option governing what search on new tabs uses to Address bar.

Step four is the one nobody guesses. The search engine setting is not under anything called Search in the sidebar; it lives at the foot of a privacy page, which is why edge://settings/search is worth remembering. Step six is the one people skip, and then conclude the change failed.

If the engine you want is not listed, click Manage search engines on the same screen, then Add, and supply a name, a keyword shortcut and the engine's query URL with %s in place of the search term. Edge also adds engines to that list automatically when you visit sites that publish a search description, so the list often contains entries you never deliberately added. Being listed is not the same as being the default.

Edge on Android and iOS

The mobile builds keep the setting under the three-dot menu, then Settings, in the General group, where recent versions list the search engine directly. Labels have shifted more often on mobile than on desktop, so if General does not show it, the entry is one level down under the same menu rather than anywhere else.

As with any browser on a phone, the setting changes Edge and nothing else. Searches begun from a system search bar, a widget, or another browser are unaffected.

The new-tab page is a separate setting

This is the defining quirk of changing engines in Edge, and it is worth stating plainly: the address bar and the new-tab search box are governed independently. Edge's new-tab page has historically routed its search box to Bing regardless of the address-bar default, and the control that changes this is the new-tab search option beside the engine dropdown. Set it to Address bar and the new-tab box starts obeying your chosen engine.

A related surface behaves the same way. Copilot and the Edge sidebar are Microsoft services and query Microsoft's own systems irrespective of your default engine; they are not a search engine setting that has failed to apply, they are a different product inside the same window.

Windows search will still use Bing

Typing into the Windows taskbar or Start menu and clicking a web result opens Bing. That is a Windows behaviour, not an Edge one, and changing Edge's default search engine does not affect it. Microsoft does not provide a supported setting to point Windows web search at another engine, which is a genuine limitation rather than an oversight on your part.

The practical consequence is that after switching engines you may still see Bing results several times a day without understanding why. The distinction to hold on to is where you typed: the address bar of a browser tab follows your engine setting; a system search box on the desktop does not.

Why the setting reverts

Four causes account for nearly all of it.

1. An extension is controlling search. Edge extensions, including ones installed from the Chrome Web Store, can declare a search provider. When one has, the dropdown is locked and Edge says so. Removing the extension at edge://extensions unlocks it.
2. A policy is setting it. Work and school devices are frequently managed, and leftover policy keys from bundled installers behave identically. Open edge://policy and look for entries whose names begin DefaultSearchProvider. A managed-browser banner on a personal machine that no organisation administers is not normal.
3. Profile sync restored an older value. Signed-in Edge profiles synchronise settings across devices; a machine still holding the old engine can push it back.
4. You only changed one of the two settings. Address bar switched, new-tab box untouched — the change looks half-applied because it is.

Edge's Reset settings option restores the default engine, new-tab page and startup pages and disables extensions, keeping favourites and passwords. It clears the symptom. If the extension or policy responsible is still present, the engine returns at the next launch.

Preference or hijack

A change you made is one you can describe: you opened Settings, you chose a named engine, and it stayed. Treat the following as evidence of something else.

• The engine changed after you installed free software rather than after you opened Settings.
• The dropdown is greyed out or the browser claims to be managed on a personal computer.
• Searches route through an unfamiliar domain before arriving at a mainstream results page. The redirect is how the operator is paid — traffic handed on to a real engine carries a partner fee.
• The startup page or new-tab page changed at the same time. Choosing a search engine does not alter either.
• On Windows, the browser opens the wrong page from a desktop or taskbar shortcut but the right one when launched from the Start menu. That points at a modified shortcut rather than a browser setting at all.

What to point it at

With the two settings changed, the remaining question is whose index Edge will query. Microsoft Bing runs its own crawler and its own index, and a good deal of the wider market runs on it — DuckDuckGo blends its own layer over Bing-sourced results rather than crawling the web itself, and several smaller engines license from the same source. Switching from Bing to an engine that resells Bing changes the interface and the data handling, not the pages. Engines with genuinely independent crawls are a short list: Google, Bing itself, Brave Search, Mojeek, Yandex and Baidu among them. Knowing which category an engine falls into is the difference between changing what you see and changing who watches.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge
• learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-policies
• digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en