Address Bar and Search Bars

This document describes the implementation of Firefox’s address bar, also known as the quantumbar or urlbar. The address bar was also called the awesomebar until Firefox 68, when it was substantially rewritten.

The same code also runs the search bar in the toolbar and the search bar on the New Tab page, so most of these pages apply to all three.

The address bar is a specialized search access point that aggregates data from several different sources, including:

  • Places (Firefox’s history and bookmarks system)

  • Search engines (including search suggestions)

  • WebExtensions

  • Open tabs

Where to Start

If you want a high level, nontechnical summary of how the address bar works, read Nontechnical Overview.

If you are interested in the technical details, you might want to skip ahead to Architecture.

Codebase

The code lives in browser/components/urlbar, which is where the often-used urlbar shorthand comes from.

Table of Contents

API Reference